Two new education centers focused on meeting Ohio's workforce needs are set to open their doors in the new year.
Butler Tech is preparing to open its new Aviation Center at the Middletown Regional Airport in late January. The aviation program currently works out of a classroom space at the airport and has about 80 high school juniors and seniors enrolled.
Adam Snoddy, principal of the aviation school, says the center's opening will be a major step for the program, allowing it to expand and welcome more students.
"It's going to give us a chance to take the physical structure we've got and turn it into a truly dedicated aviation culture where all our students will be able to participate in it at the same time," Snoddy told WVXU.
Once open, the center will have a classroom for general education, flight simulators, garages and its own hangar, allowing students to study aviation maintenance, piloting, engineering, airport management and air traffic control — all in one building — before they graduate high school.
During the federal government shutdown in early 2025, air traffic controllers and TSA officers across the country worked without pay, and airlines cancelled or delayed many flights due to a lack of controllers on the job. The shutdown came to an end after 43 days, and it highlighted the industry's longstanding issue of not having enough workers. Snoddy says as the new center grows, it'll prepare more young people for those positions.
"It's unique on the workforce front because we are going to offer aviation maintenance pathways, but we also still offer pathways with pilots and drones; we're also looking at working on aviation engineering pathways," he said.
Advanced Manufacturing Hub opens
Down the road in Hamilton, Butler Tech and Miami University are joining forces inside the new Advanced Manufacturing Workforce and Innovation Hub set to welcome students Jan. 6. The hub will help students from both Butler Tech and Miami earn industry credentials and prepare to further their education in robotics and engineering fields.
The hub, located at the Vora Technology Park, received millions in local funding to revitalize the underutilized campus and install technology like massive CNC machines that students can use to design and build their own parts and machines for various purposes.
Travis Hunt, principal of Butler Tech's program at the Advanced Manufacturing Hub, claims the facility and its technology could play a significant role in retaining young engineers in Ohio.
"With the machines they're working on, they would have to go to the state of Washington or maybe up north somewhere to get the training on the machines," Hunt said. "We envision ourselves being that type of trainer for companies in the region."
Years ago, Hayden Morgan, who grew up in Harrison, was one of those students who had to leave the region to continue his studies. After earning an undergraduate degree from the University of Cincinnati, Morgan moved on to Texas A&M before starting a career in the aerospace industry in Seattle. Now, he's a new engineering instructor at the Advanced Manufacturing Hub and says Butler Tech's connection to Miami, the facility's tools and more technology companies now calling Ohio home may inspire more students to stick around.
"If you would've told me in my high school we would have access [to this technology], I would've laughed in your face," Morgan told WVXU. "In rural Ohio, there were not these opportunities when I was growing up, and that's why I left to do aerospace somewhere else."
Forty-seven high school students are currently enrolled in Butler Tech's program, but the goal is to increase enrollment to over 200 within a few years.
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