Private $1M Grant Will Train Future Honda Aircraft Workers

JAMESTOWN, N.C. - GTCC is getting a $1 million grant that will help it train workers for Honda Aircraft and other transportation companies, the school announced Thursday.

The grant comes from the Joseph M. Bryan Foundation of Greater Greensboro specifically to finance equipment in the Aviation and Transportation Logistics Program.

GTCC President Don Cameron said that the money will go to training workers to work at Honda, aircraft maintenance company TIMCO and for a dealer technician apprenticeship program for Volvo Trucks NorthAmerica and Mack Trucks .

Beginning Aug. 20, GTCC will provide custom training programs for Honda, which announced in February that it will build its advanced HondaJet at Piedmont Triad International Airport for delivery in 2010.

Ed Frye, chairman of GTCC's Transportation Technology Division, said in a news release that the money will make a big difference.

"In terms of its biggest impact, it will allow us to equip the programs in both heavy equipment and aviation with the same kind of equipment and materials that our students will have when they enter the work place," he said.

"In other words, they will be trained to work as they went to school, as opposed to training on older equipment and then running into new equipment as soon as they step on the floor of the work place."

The school will use $744,000 of the money for its aviation program, which will become especially prominent this year as Honda begins building its $60 million headquarters and design center at the airport.

In coming years, Honda will hire about 250 production workers who will need training in airframe and engine maintenance.

Because the plane is built from a light, advanced composite material, not metal, workers will also need training in new composite techniques.

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