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EDUCATION October 2014 airportbusiness 37 954.975.2100 DMEAirfeldSales@astronics.com www.Astronics.com Dependable lighting makes all the difference. Improve your airfeld today with the latest Astronics DME Navigate Series ® products. Our Navigate Series products use the latest LED technology providing reduced maintenance costs and energy savings for years to come. Call us now to learn more about our LED elevated runway and taxiway lights as well as our new low profle centerline in-pavement lights. You will be glad you did. www.aviationpros.com/10131734 term. This is not a free ride. Commitment and work are required. The Tennessee Promise is expected to greatly increase student enrollment, and colleges are expected to compete for those students. This is evidenced by schools like Northeast State Community College, which will start this fall with basic industry courses and will have an aviation curriculum by the fall of 2015. K-12 schools will "feed" prepared students to two-year colleges, which will feed to four-year colleges those students who want a four-year degree. One of the critical goals is to visit grades K-12 and get the students excited about aviation careers. Bell was already doing this before the Aviation Initiative was formed, thus providing a kick start for the program. As Blevins points out, getting students excited about working in aviation is one thing— keeping them excited is harder, but necessary. Everyone hopes that students will be interested in qualifying for well-paid jobs that are also fas- cinating, but, as Blevins points out, they must then stay interested for the long run. STEM SKILLS The required skills are not acquired overnight. The Aviation Initiative wants to provide area youth with an alternative pathway to a successful career, but it requires commitment to travel that path. The skills required for these jobs are taken from the successful STEM program—skills in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. A new Brookings study—including Chattanooga, Tenn.—indicates that jobs requiring STEM skills are the hardest jobs for employers to fill, and that a person with STEM skills, but no college degree, is-- and will be--in higher demand than a person who has a degree, but no STEM background. Jonathon Rothwell, a fellow at Brookings, points out that "…workers with no STEM knowl- edge or post-secondary degrees compete with many qualified candidates for a scarce number of jobs." Rothwell expects the gap in earn- ings and unemployment between STEM and non-STEM workers will get worse unless more technical training is provided in schools. Indeed, a recent broadcast on public radio reported that college grads are currently competing with teenagers for fast-food jobs. D e n i s e R i c e , a m a n a g e r a t Cormetech in Cleveland, Tenn., tells school groups: "I have jobs I can't fill." In a recent interview with Edge magazine, Rice said, "We keep telling [young people] to go to college and get a degree, versus getting the skills that are necessary to get a job." She tells students that "Diplomas count less and specific skills count much more." Brookings reported on jobs adver- tised by 52,000 companies in the first quarter of 2013. In metro Chattanooga, 16.2 percent of job vacancies last year were for technical jobs not requiring a college degree, but paying, on average, more than $50,000 per year. In the past, high school students were divided between students headed for college degrees and those who were not. Perhaps they couldn't afford col- lege, perhaps they didn't want college. The reasons didn't matter. What mattered was that they couldn't see a non-college pathway for a better life. Kids today are fascinated with smartphones, computers and other electronic devices. Aviation jobs include the newest of this tech and they are "jobs that make a difference." The question is: Can our youth be taught to see the pathway offered, and will they commit and stay committed? Northeast Tennessee includes many small towns with parents who lament the fact that their kids must move away to find a "good" job. The Aviation Initiative can help greatly by cre- ating area jobs for youth who will commit and stay committed. The Aviation Initiative already has the coop - eration of leaders at the top, and is working hard to get the message across to students. Aviation Initiative people know the problems and the rewards, and are enthusiastic—to an almost fanatical degree—about this program. "We keep telling [young people] to go to college and get a degree, versus getting the skills that are necessary to get a job. Diplomas count less and specific skills count much more." DENISE RICE, MANAGER, CORMETECH Tri-Cities Regional Airport expects the Aviation Initiative to increase traffic and attract businesses to airport-based industrial parks.