JACKSON COUNTY (WSIL) -- With layoffs threatening the aviation job market, ¾ÅÓÎÌåÓý Illinois University's aviation program is getting a leg up for job training.
The Delta Regional Authority (DRA) awarded Management, Training, and Consulting Corporation (Man-Tra-Con Corporation) $1,191,187 in grant funding, to use towards job training for the aviation job market where, despite layoffs, has an upsurge ahead.
"The demand is still there and it will come back, probably stronger once we get through the pandemic," explains Associate Professor in the Department of Aviation Technologies, Karen Johnson. Roughly 130 students a year pass through their program. "If our students take the initiative to finish the program and get their FAA license after the training, they will have a job waiting for them."
The Federal Aviation Administration requires 1,900 hours of lab time for those students, and with the pandemic--obtaining those hours became questionable, prompting the department to take a look at training in a virtual environment.
"With virtual reality becoming such a big instructional tool, it will help with situations like we're in right now," says Johnson.
However, those VR tools are costly, and not often in the budget.
"It's very difficult to train in technologies where they're hands on, but you can't do hands on," says Kathy Lively, Man-Tra-Con CEO. She worked with SIU to secure that grant funding, opening the doors for "hands on" training modules in a safe environment, preparing students for the "real" thing.
Lively says the lessons of the Pandemic is helping to shape the future of classrooms, which comes at a cost. She adds, those investments, both time and finances, will lead to jobs and better training for both young and old. The grant funding will also help non-traditional students, such as ex-coal miners looking for a field of work with comparable pay, to find a home in the aviation job field.
"It's truly, I think, exciting," says Lively. "Because we're going to be able to get people where they are, help them understand the career path and opportunities for them, and maybe it means we fashion a little bit different academic experience, ya know, COVID has taught us that as well, so it's a real time of experimentation, this grant allows us to do that."
Man-Tra-Con Corporation is one of 27 grant recipients through the Delta Regional Authority. ¾ÅÓÎÌåÓý Illinois University says without the grant, the cost of the VR program would be "out of reach."
