Pierpont, Fairmont State Squabble over Airport Space

Feb. 5—FAIRMONT — Although the split last year, Marion County's two higher education institutions have a brewing disagreement over some airport property.

Many are the complications that compound the separation between Fairmont State University and Pierpont Community and Technical College. When the two institutions signed a memorandum of understanding pledging to officially separate in 2021, there were still a lot of questions to be resolved.

The two entities had both used bonds to build structures on the once-shared Locust Avenue campus, both shared teaching spaces within facilities on campus and the question of who would keep what following the separation was mostly ironed out.

Fairmont State University would take sole ownership of the Fairmont campus and Pierpont would take the Gaston Caperton Center in Clarksburg. The arrangements that allowed for this were complicated and involved Pierpont paying out $16 million by 2032 to settle debts and separate bonds.

However, one situation that has still yet to be solved is the issue of the space the two institutions still share at North Central West Virginia Airport.

Fairmont State and Pierpont still share space in the Robert C. Byrd National Aerospace Education Center located on the airport's compound. Fairmont State runs its aviation flight and management programs there, which have around 20 enrollees currently, including students which are part of the programs "blended courses."

In the same facility, Pierpont offers its aviation technology program, which not only supplies workers who are in much higher demand but can find jobs just next door to the campus.

W.Va. Sen. Bob Beach, D-13, is a member of the Senate's education committee and is familiar with the Fairmont-Pierpont debacle. He said in a previous interview that the Pierpont program is outgrowing the space provided at the aerospace center.

"My opinion is, you allow Pierpont to expand in that area and you move Fairmont across the runway to a vacant piece of property," Beach said. "The state can invest $7 or $8 million to give Fairmont a state-of-the-art facility. That's a cheaper avenue than trying to move Pierpont somewhere else."

Pierpont's aerospace maintenance program has seen substantial growth in the last year. Prior to March 2021, the program was producing around 90 students a year, but the companies in the airport complex were complaining they weren't getting the students fast enough, so Pierpont decided to expand.

"I spoke with the leaders in that program and tried to figure out how to increase that number," Beach said.

The Federal Aviation Administration determines the total number of students that can pass through the maintenance program, and Pierpont was locked at 90. So, to bump up their numbers, the school made huge investments in expanding staff and faculty and even found a way to cover the expensive exit exam required of the students.

Now the program can have a maximum of 130 students.

At the Benedum Airport Authority's recent year-in-review meeting, Brad Gilbert, director of Pierpont's senior professor of aviation technology, said that just at the winter midterm, Pierpont's program signed off on 43 certificates of competition.

He quoted a national survey by the Aviation Technical Education Council which says that 62 percent of aerospace maintenance programs have less than 50 completers a year and Pierpont's had 43 just at the midterm mark.

"We're expecting to have a good-sized group coming out in the spring," Gilbert said. "We have 118 students on our books, we started the year at 130, our FAA cap."

The question now arises, with Pierpont's program expanding and proving to be in high demand, will Fairmont State's program continue to fight for its space on the Robert C. Byrd campus?

"Pierpont is doing their job, and they just need to be left alone so they can continue to increase the enrollment in there," Beach said. "But that's going to require the expansion. The argument becomes who's going to stay in [the Robert C. Byrd] Facility? Will it be Pierpont, who's growing, or Fairmont's little flight training program?"

Reach David Kirk at 304-367-2522 or by email at [email protected].

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