Timco: Building a workforce

Dec. 30--GREENSBORO

Torie Cherry might as well be a surgeon. In his job, a mistake is not an option. Hundreds of lives depend on it.

So he makes precise adjustments deep in the dark jet engine of a Boeing 767-300 on an aluminum part the size of a CD.

Cherry and hundreds of other workers at TIMCO MRO Services crawl on, in and under airliners, doing routine maintenance, fixing broken parts or overhauling the planes from nose to tail.

TIMCO, which is growing at a double-digit pace, needs more workers. So it is raising its profile, making sure young people consider aviation careers, even sponsoring the TIMCO Invitational high school basketball tournament after Christmas to draw the attention of prospective students and their parents.

Such jobs, and jobs in manufacturing and other similar industries, have fallen out of fashion, partly because young people have seen a generation of layoffs in America.

But the president of TIMCO MRO (which stands for maintenance, repair and overhaul), Bill Norman, says it's time for students to see the opportunities in aviation, so the company is trying to bring in a new generation of employees.

TIMCO has all the work it can handle at its Piedmont Triad International Airport headquarters and 32 locations around the United States.

TIMCO also designs and makes lavatories and kitchen galleys in Greensboro and airplane seats at a new plant in Wallburg.

Its Triad operations alone employ 1,500 workers, part of the company's total workforce of 2,700.

TIMCO, which already handles nearly 200 aircraft a year at PTI, may add another hangar here or at another location in 2013.

American Airlines and others are sending more work to private contractors like TIMCO. A major Canadian MRO recently liquidated, sending a big block of work into the market. TIMCO has landed a good share of that work and locked airlines into long-term contracts.

Business is so good that TIMCO has hired 677 workers in the Triad in the past two years and expects to hire another 300 in 2013.

With new contracts beginning Jan. 1, "we needed to bring in at least 100 mechanics," Norman said. "Our bias and preference is to hire locally. You can't just hire anybody off the street -- this is a technical business."

GTCC is training students to earn airframe and powerplant licenses from the Federal Aviation Administration. Those licenses let students do the high-skill mechanical work that TIMCO handles at its four hangars here.

Not all workers need licenses, however, so TIMCO has to be creative, Norman said. It is setting up special classes taught by TIMCO staff members where students are paid to learn such skills as sheet metal work.

A class of 30 will graduate in January. But those students are not guaranteed TIMCO jobs.

"We have some expectations about your performance -- our goal is that we'd like to hire every one of them," Norman said.

"Our goal is to have all of them be successful and come over to TIMCO -- hiring local people is a good thing."

TIMCO is not alone in seeking skilled aviation workers here. Along the same stretch of Radar Road, Cessna services its Citation jets and Honda Aircraft is building and soon will maintain its HondaJets, too.

Economic developers say they believe Greensboro is on the cusp of becoming a major aviation center.

Norman is working with local aviation executives to build a base of skilled workers.

"We all recognize we can compete for the same resource, and we don't want to be in a head-to-head competition," he said.

Norman said the company's job is to succeed in business. But it needs to draw workers who like what they do and can pass on their satisfaction to future generations.

"It's about people going home feeling good about the work they do and the industry that they're in and communicating it to their family," Norman said.

"If we want America to succeed as a manufacturing base, it starts in the home."

Contact Richard M. Barron at 373-7371.