Twenty-five employees/students graduated from the recent program and celebrated the event on December 11 at the Boeing Center at Tech Port, along with their family members, StandardAero leadership and representatives from both the City of San Antonio and Port San Antonio. Russell Ford, Chairman & CEO of StandardAero, traveled from the company's Scottsdale, Arizona headquarters to deliver the keynote speech at the graduation ceremony.

StandardAero's customized, in-house training program and Academy focus on training groups of up to 25 employees in each of its cohorts, working through a comprehensive 12-week program featuring a variety of experiences ranging from classroom training to hands-on training with tooling, equipment and engines. The academy is located at the San Antonio maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility, which houses five major engine MRO programs that serve both commercial and military customers under more than 810,000 square feet of industrial space and is rapidly expanding as it also adds major new engine maintenance programs.

StandardAero launched its new Training Academy and Mechanic Training Program in June of this year and has graduated 55 new mechanics to date. The Mechanic Training Program can support up to 200 new mechanics annually. The company started this program to help meet the need for additional maintenance workers at its facility in San Antonio, as well as for other company locations in the future.

"Hiring, training and retaining aviation maintenance technicians is one of our biggest challenges and top priorities for StandardAero and our entire industry," said Greg Chapman, Director of Training and Workforce Development. "To accelerate our ability to quickly bring on new skilled workers as the business expands, our senior leadership had the vision and the foresight to work with local partners and invest in an upskilling program. That investment included hiring 12 dedicated instructors and providing dedicated space, resources and a customized curriculum for our new hires to hit the ground running — whether they have any aviation or mechanical experience or not."

So far, the program has included employees with significant industry experience, employees with experience from the automotive industry and employees with no mechanical experience at all. The 12-week program is modular to accelerate the training time for employees with previous experience and to get them on the factory floor quickly. For employees with little to no experience, the full program ensures that all students are fully oriented to gas turbine technology both through classroom and hands-on training, working with engine parts and components.

"Our goals for our graduating students are quite high," said StandardAero Chairman & CEO Russell Ford. "We want to bring in the most diverse candidates, train them quickly, retain 100% of our graduates and create a lifelong career path that provides them with meaningful work and rewarding pay and benefits."

StandardAero is continuing to sponsor the Training Academy in 2024 and beyond. The company has plans to train over 150 technicians next year and it also plans to transfer instructors and curriculum to other company facilities around the world to maximize StandardAero's ability to continue to hire and staff technicians to meet the company's growing global demands.

"For more than a century, StandardAero's name has been synonymous around the world with delivery of the highest quality service while continually innovating," said Port San Antonio President and CEO Jim Perschbach. "We are thrilled to see the rapid implementation of the new training program and the lifelong doors of opportunity that are being opened to hard working people across our community. Our longtime customer is building on San Antonio's proud aerospace heritage while developing new generations of talent and helping them chart an exciting course toward their futures."