New Aviation Technician School Taking off in Myrtle Beach

Jan. 08--Mounds of textbooks sit neatly on a table, a stack for each student to pick up. Down the hall, two rows of welding stations are ready for action, an old tail wing from US Airways leans against a wall and tools line pegboards ready to get dirty.

Come Monday, 31 students eager for training to launch a new career as aviation technicians will christen the new 20,000-square-foot Pittsburgh Institute of Aeronautics, a well-known school in the industry that has opened its first campus outside the Northeast in Myrtle Beach.

"It's kind of like a way to specialize in something," said Brian Akins, 22, an electrician from Raleigh, N.C., who has moved to the area for the next 18 months for the four-semester training. "It's a good career field and industry."

The 83-year-old not-for-profit school -- which has other locations in Pittsburgh; Youngstown, Ohio; and Hagerstown, Md. -- was drawn south by the Myrtle Beach Regional Economic Development Corp., which is in the early stages of working toward making aviation big business along the Grand Strand.

The group, charged with luring jobs to Horry County, is working to bring aviation companies to the beach -- especially suppliers to the new Boeing plant in nearby North Charleston -- and having a school like PIA here to train the workers those companies will need is a crucial step, said Brad Lofton, the development corporation's president.

"Every single one of them ask, 'Where am I going to find A&P [airframe and powerplant] mechanics, skilled workers?'" he said. "They've got to know they can recruit employees. We ought to be rolling out a pretty significant number of graduates before too long. It's the cherry on top."

PIA has invested about $500,000 transforming the building off Shine Avenue on the former Myrtle Beach Air Force Base into a place where students can learn the ins and outs of jet engines, with three classrooms, a welding shop, a powerplant shop and an airframe shop. Mock-ups of control panels line walls in some rooms, while rows of reciprocating engines sit in the shop ready for tinkering. PIA gets the gear, including a Westinghouse J-34 engine used in the military, through its other campuses or government surplus.

Students must have a high school diploma and pass a math test to enroll at PIA, where they can partner with Horry-Georgetown Technical College to earn an associate's degree. Once training ends, students take a test to receive the airframe and powerplant certificate, which they'll need to in order to be hired in the industry.

"They can work on anything that flies," said Peg Jackson, PIA's campus director in Myrtle Beach and the company's corporate secretary. "There's a nationwide market for our graduates. When they say they've got a PIA certificate, [companies] know that they've got a good candidate."

PIA grads have gone on to work for airlines, air ambulance specialists and companies that repair planes, including AvCraft Technical Services, which is just about a block from PIA's new digs.

AvCraft, which announced about a week ago that it plans to expand and add 150 employees during the next five years, regularly flew to PIA in Pittsburgh to recruit mechanics, avionics specialists and structures specialists -- jobs that can range from $15 an hour for basic mechanics to $28 an hour for specialists, said Mike Hill, AvCraft's general manager.

Once the school that is now literally around the corner from the plant, starts churning out graduates, AvCraft officials won't have to make that trip to Pittsburgh two or three times a year, he said.

"It's a big benefit for us to have a school in the area," Hill said. "It has a very high reputation. Talk to anybody in the maintenance field, they will be familiar with that school."

The potential for jobs at AvCraft and at the planned aviation business park under construction made Myrtle Beach an appealing place for PIA to set up, Jackson said.

"Hopefully, more aviation companies will come in," Jackson said. "That's our hope."

Just a few miles away, crews are putting the finishing touches on the roads and other backbones of the International Technology & Aerospace Park, a 430-acre business park with access to a runway where officials envision all kinds of aviation companies, including Boeing suppliers and maintenance businesses, setting up shop. So far, none have committed to move into the park, but officials say it's just a matter of time.

"The county has a hunger for it," Jackson said. "They want to make it work."

This is the second campus PIA has opened in the past year; Hagerstown opened in the spring. The Myrtle Beach location can expand to handle as many as 150 students.

Some students here already have gotten a jump on the program, taking prep classes in the fall at Horry-Georgetown Technical College. The area hasn't had an aviation school like this since the North American Institute of Aviation, which provided flight and aircraft maintenance training at the Conway airport, closed in 2008, so this kind of opportunity is intriguing, said Greg Heller, one of two PIA instructors in Myrtle Beach.

"For some of them, it's, 'Wow, I can really do it,'" said Heller, who worked at airlines and other aviation companies for 25 years.

Akins, among the first PIA class in Myrtle Beach, wanted to specialize in a craft that provided plenty of career opportunities, even during tough economic times. The economy hasn't been good to the electrician recently, and he's eager to extend his skills.

"You can use your head and your hands," he said of being an aviation technician. "I saw it as an opportunity to continue my trade. People are always going to need to fly somewhere."

Contact DAWN BRYANT at 626-0296.