Aircraft maintenance is the backbone of aviation safety. Andrew Brown and Jason Pfaff break down the aircraft maintenance technician shortage, FAA A&P certification, and aviation careers.

Host Andrew Brown sits down with Jason Pfaff, CEO of the Aviation Institute of Maintenance, to explore the unseen world of aircraft maintenance and why the growing aircraft maintenance technician shortage is becoming a serious issue across the aviation industry.

They unpack what goes into keeping planes airworthy, why FAA A&P certification is one of the most rigorous credentials in the skilled trades, and how aviation maintenance school serves Gen Z, career changers, and hands-on problem solvers alike. The conversation also maps the long-term aviation mechanic career path, including pay progression, mobility, and opportunities beyond commercial airlines.

This episode is essential listening for anyone curious about Skilled Trades, the Trades Industry, or high-impact careers built on craftsmanship, precision, and responsibility.

IN THIS EPISODE

1. (00:00) – Aircraft Maintenance Explained: What the public doesn’t see behind every flight
2. (01:27) – The Aircraft Maintenance Technician Shortage: Why aviation is facing a workforce gap
3. (08:17) – FAA A&P Certification: Why aviation mechanics are held to a higher standard
4. (13:40) – Aviation Maintenance School: Program length, structure, and return on investment
5. (18:56) – Career Placement & Mobility: Airlines, MROs, space, and advanced aerospace roles
6. (26:05) – The Aviation Mechanic Career Path: Earnings, leadership tracks, and long-term growth

Key Takeaways

1. Aircraft maintenance is a highly coordinated, safety-critical system that most passengers never notice—until something goes wrong.
2. The aircraft maintenance technician shortage is structural, driven by retirements, reduced trade pipelines, and rising travel demand.
3. FAA A&P certification provides standardized credibility, portability, and strong employer demand across aviation and aerospace.
4. An aviation maintenance school pathway offers a high-ROI skilled trade with a scalable aviation mechanic career path.

About the Guest

Jason Pfaff is the CEO of the Aviation Institute of Maintenance, one of the nation’s largest aviation training organizations. He leads initiatives focused on workforce development, FAA-aligned education, and career placement across commercial aviation, MROs, and aerospace employers. Jason is a vocal advocate for Trades Careers, education access, and strengthening the skilled trades pipeline nationwide.

Keywords

Aircraft Maintenance, Aircraft Maintenance Technician Shortage, FAA A&P Certification, Aviation Maintenance School, Aviation Mechanic Career Path, Skilled Trades, Trades Industry, Trades Careers, Tradespeople, Craftsmanship, Problem-solving, Creativity, Advocacy, Education, Skilled Trades Advisory Council, Andrew Brown, Jason Pfaff, Aviation Institute of Maintenance, Carpentry, HVAC, Electricians, Plumbers, Millwrights, Construction, Contractors, Industry Experts

RESOURCE LINKS

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-pfaff-210a3578/

Website: https://aviationmaintenance.edu/

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(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) What do you feel that the public gets wrong about aircraft maintenance?

What do they not see?

You know, aviation right now, if you think about it, if you just zoom out,

it's one of the great miracles of our modern world.

And the amount of things that have to go right and to come into sync

or a one plane to take off from Des Moines to Portland,

you know, as you mentioned, 45,000 times a day.

It really is a marvel of modern science.

And one of the jokes that we have is,

if you actually knew everything that went into getting that plane off the ground,

you would either be completely blown away and amazed and excited

or scared to death and never fly again,

because you would be convinced that can't continue to happen, but it does.

Hi, I'm Andrew Brown.

You're listening to the Lost Star of the Skilled Trades podcast,

a show that shines the spotlight on careers in the skilled trades

that are high paying, honorable, rewarding, and fulfilling.

The trades are the backbone of the economy that keep us running.

And without them, our world would cease to exist.

All right.

Welcome back to the Lost Art of the Skilled Trades.

I'm your host, Andrew Brown.

Super excited to have Jason Pfaff, CEO of Aviation Institute of Maintenance.

How you doing, man?

I'm doing good.

How are you?

I am doing well.

There are 45,000 flights every single day.

I had to look that number up.

And there is a 10% shortage of aircraft maintenance technicians.

I didn't even know about this.

And I found that out through the Aerospace Maintenance Council.

They provided that statistic.

We get in planes.

We don't think about it.

We don't think about the maintenance.

We just want to get into our location at a reasonable time.

What is happening on the shortage front of aviation technicians

that you can share with the audience?

Yeah, there's a couple of things that have really come together over the last few years.

First, in this country, over the last few decades, going to trade school,

coming to a place like AIM for two years, and working with your hands, and

working in a hangar, studying in a hangar, fell out of vogue a little as we had this

push for college for all, of which I was part of,

working in traditional education for much of my career.

And so we saw a tapering effect of folks who were entering the trade,

going back to the 90s into the 2000s.

And then COVID hit.

So what we had was a large percentage of our aviation maintainer workforce was

starting to get later in their career, starting to come up on retirement.

COVID obviously hit aviation hard.

And a lot of those folks took early retirement.

And they took a package and it created this dent that was,

we were already in the process of creating this gap or this shortage of aviation maintainers.

And then we took a big step change up in the shortage with COVID as folks

exited the occupation due to how hard aviation got hit.

And then now that the country has rebounded and aviation and traveling by plane is back,

and there was a lot of pent up demand.

And over the long term, aviation will continue to grow with GDP.

That gap has just continued to widen because we still have that

gap from a few decades ago where fewer and fewer folks were coming into the trades.

So we didn't have a backfill as folks left the occupation.

Now, as you said, we're about 10% down.

We expect that by 2028 really to be 20% because so many folks over

these next few years are retiring.

They're just in the later stages of the career.

That gap is why it's not really just the number today.

It's the rate of change.

It's continuing to grow.

And we forecast it to continue to grow for a number of years.

So what happens in that situation?

So you got 10% shortage, then it drove to 20%.

People are already on edge when it comes to flying anyway,

and everything that happened with the government shutdown.

And we went through it.

But now if planes can't get fixed on time, because even when there is an issue

on the tarmac and you're waiting, they have to replace something.

What if that person's not there?

What happens there?

You're going to wait even longer.

As you mentioned, it's certainly been quite a time over the last year to an aviation, right?

There's been a lot more scrutiny, a lot more visibility,

whether it's air traffic controllers, maintenance issues, standards are going up.

We also see this even with pilots and other areas of aviation.

The standards go up for maintenance and safety of which you and I fly all the time.

We're in favor of.

It really does impact the amount of time it takes for a plane to get fixed,

for a plane to get back in service.

And ultimately, airlines start to cut routes.

So you have less options.

You know, a grandma wants to fly home to see a birth of a new baby,

and she might have two options, whereas she used to have four.

Maybe there's a delay because a maintainer isn't there to fix

whatever issue the plane may have had.

So planes are grounded longer.

It takes longer for them to get back into service.

And ultimately, airlines are cutting routes.

Right.

And then it just affects your day-to-day travel.

That's right.

Right. Nobody wins at the end of the day.

What do you feel that the public gets wrong about aircraft maintenance?

What do they not see?

It's, you know, aviation right now, if you think about it, if you just zoom out,

it's one of the great miracles of our modern world.

And the amount of things that have to go right and to come into sync

for a one plane to take off from Des Moines to Portland,

you know, as you mentioned, 45,000 times a day.

It really is a marvel of modern science.

And one of the jokes that we have is, you know,

if you actually knew everything that went into getting that plane off the ground,

you would either be completely blown away and amazed and excited

or scared to death and never fly again,

because you would be convinced that can't continue to happen.

But it does.

Aviation is fundamentally, extraordinarily safe

and has been for decades.

And it's a miracle if you really boil it down and get granular about it scientifically.

And that's something that, you know, as our students cross the threshold,

when they become more aware and learn more about aviation,

they talk to their parents or their spouse or their co-workers

about why they're shifting careers.

The opportunity to work into something that is just so beyond,

you know, the ordinary human's ability in their day-to-day

to even comprehend is really exciting and compelling.

So it's just a level of complexity and just scientific wonder

that most of us take for granted, right?

And if a plane is 20 minutes late, I'm calling my wife.

I'm all upset.

It's like, why can't they get this right?

And in reality, I mean, you know,

you have a team of folks coming together to solve a problem,

often in adverse weather conditions.

You know, imagine working on the tarmac of JFK today.

You know, it's freezing.

And they've got 20 minutes to get 200 people safely from point A to point B.

And again, most of the time, we're not even thinking about it.

We just take it for granted.

That's how well we do it in this country.

Yeah. I mean, you explained it well.

I mean, it's got to be pressure.

I mean, one thing for the pilot to get us there,

but also, you know, the maintenance technicians to keep it flying,

keep the airplanes flying.

But we don't know what goes into planes.

When I hear the planes kind of start up and they're flushing the system,

you would know more than I would when it comes to that noise you hear.

And you start to think, well, is that OK?

Is that a problem?

But that's part of the whole process of flying.

But we don't realize what goes into getting those massive machines up in the air

on top of the engines, you know, keep everything running.

So I don't think the public really realizes,

or even wants to really know what really goes into it.

Because you said it's like, you know, if you really knew what went into it,

you'd be like amazed.

Absolutely. Yeah.

And, you know, it explains another thing that, you know,

folks may take for granted is the folks that you see on the tarmac

that are fixing the plane or they come into the cockpit

while you're waiting on the runway.

And, you know, they come into a school like this and it's a two-year program.

They take a series of exams.

There's three parts to the certification,

general, airframe and power plant.

You know, you talk to a lot of folks across the skilled trades

and, you know, you talk to an electrician and they are wonderful folks.

Well, there's a lot of electricity that comes through a plane, right?

So our aviation mechanics know basic electricity.

They have to rewire a plane, again, in a very high-pressured situation

at a moment's notice.

In addition to being an expert on the engine,

in addition to making sure all these systems come together

and that process of being able to certify on that in school is extremely rigorous.

And again, we're happy about that, right?

Like we want it to be rigorous and it's made that way by the FAA, again,

so that there's a standard way that every plane gets signed off on

by an A&P mechanic, many of whom come through a school like this,

so that, you know, that card, that maintenance record is certified,

it's standard and it is known to be airworthy and safe.

And again, that process to get your plane off the ground started years ago.

Yeah. So we were talking about, obviously,

the amazement of actually getting to a plane and, you know,

we just don't think about, obviously, what goes into the maintenance side.

And you explained it beautifully about all the intricacies of what

it's like to fix the plane and what you need to learn sort of behind that.

But I'm interested to know, you know,

some of your best students, how did they find out about AIM?

How did they find out about this particular trade?

Because sometimes it's just not out there.

You know, a certain percentage of our students are aviation enthusiasts.

You know, they grew up, as I mentioned earlier, with that miracle of aviation.

You know, dad passed it down to them.

Grandpa passed it to dad and, you know,

they were building planes or flying drones in the garage from a very early age.

That's one percentage of our students.

Then there's this group that, you know,

they were interested in some form of trade-oriented education.

They really weren't sure how the system worked.

It's not something we talk a lot about in this country.

You know, how do you go to trade school?

Do you need to apprentice?

Do they need to invite you to the school?

Is there admissions criteria?

How hard is it?

And there's a lot of ambiguity and mystery around it still.

And unfortunately, especially in an educational context,

ambiguity and mystery, folks are just quick to ignore that.

And they're like, I'll just, you know, I'll just go take a job.

So a lot of our students, you know, to speak to an archetype,

maybe they did a semester at a community college.

Maybe they tried state U for a little bit, took a few classes.

They weren't really feeling it.

They took a job and now they're in their early to mid-20s.

And, you know, we call them education re-engagers.

They're wanting to come back.

They understand the power of education.

They know they want to work in teams, solve problems,

be active, work with their hands.

And they're just looking to see what those options are.

And then at some point they come across, you know, our website

or they hear about aviation maintenance from a friend.

They're searching for trade schools.

And they've just, they've had enough time now

that they're really motivated to figure it out.

And then we have folks later in their career, you know,

who may be, you know, one of my favorite students

sold insurance for 20 years.

You know, he loved working in the garage on cars.

He loved engines.

He loved making things work.

And finally, his wife told him like, do what you love.

You know, we've got a chance here.

We've got a shot.

So we have folks who are, we call career changers, right?

Who just want that, you know, run up the mountain

doing what they love.

And they want to take this opportunity to spend their time

doing something that they believe in.

Let's talk about the career changer for a quick second.

Where's that age range where they say like,

okay, I don't want to go maybe the college path

or I went to college.

Like, where is that age?

Yeah, it's probably 30 to 50.

You know, I was at a graduation in Atlanta a few weeks ago.

And you know, someone my age 49 was walking across the stage

and again, had a great career, 20 years doing, you know,

something else.

And just wanted to take the chance now to try aviation.

We have night programs.

We have weekend programs.

Some of our best students work all day.

They change and then they come to class, you know,

till 11 to 12 o'clock at night.

And most of those folks in our evening and weekend programs

are career changers.

They're 30 to 50.

They've spent 10 to 20, maybe 30 years doing something else.

And they're just serious.

They make a switch.

They're great students.

Yeah, I mean, it's later on.

Like we were talking off camera about my family member

who wanted to be electrician, he's 36.

But people decide that this is not the path that I want to take

and that this is an opportunity.

So age is not necessarily a factor here.

So if I'm 42 years old and I want to make a switch,

I can make a switch to this.

Absolutely.

And the actual, just so people understand,

because I want to shift into one is obviously

how do people discover it?

But two is how long does it take?

Because the younger generation and even somebody

who's a career changer, how long is this going to take me

to go through this program?

And when do I start getting a return on investment?

Because that's really important to most.

Yeah, the program is 21 months

and it leads to full FAA certification.

There's the airframe and power plant certification.

We call it A&P.

And our entire curriculum and our 21 month program

is designed to have you certified by the FAA

to work on airplanes.

Again, as I mentioned, we have full-time daytime programs,

evening programs, and weekend programs.

So even the career changer doesn't have to leave

the current job, they can learn in the evening

and the weekend.

And even the weekend is full-time.

They'll come to class all day Friday, all day Saturday,

all day Sunday, and still complete in 21 months.

And again, at the end of the 21 months,

the goal is to not only have completed our program

successfully from an academic perspective,

but to sit for and certify with the FAA curriculum

or the FAA certification.

To your point on ROI, the job prospects in this country

for a licensed certified A&P are very good.

And there's some out-of-the-box benefits

that folks gravitate towards very quickly.

One, certification is portable.

If you want to stay where you live

and you love where you live,

and again, maybe you're a career changer

that even owns your home,

there's a variety of aviation options

in your market, I'm sure.

But for our younger students,

maybe they grew up somewhere and they want to travel

and they want to live somewhere else in the country,

that FAA certification is in enough demand

that you can be reasonably confident

that where you'd want to live, it translates.

And the other thing about a certification,

you see this across many trades is,

I mean, that is your ticket with the employer.

There is a sense of standardization

and a sense of credibility behind that.

And anyone hiring in an aviation context

knows how difficult the FAA certification,

how rigorous that process is.

And the demand for those folks is very strong.

Typically, and it does vary market to market,

folks come out of our program in some markets,

making 60 to 70, other markets,

and we're in New York City.

And they just come out.

Yeah.

So the 60, 70K and the investment in typically,

so 21 months, 67K,

and what's roughly the investment in for somebody?

It's $47,000 for the full program.

And I am rounding to be abundantly clear.

It's about $47,000 and it's a 21 month program.

And you're in a hangar with jets and equipment

and just the same equipment that you'll work on

in a hangar professionally.

Yeah.

And we have, again, I was at a graduation in Charlotte

and we had students that were my son's age.

My son is 20.

We have some students who took a 21 month program

when they were 18.

They're friends who went to a traditional four-year.

Nothing wrong with that

or still in the traditional four-year.

And those guys in Charlotte were between 75 and 85.

There was a group of four of them.

Starting salary right out of aviation maintenance school.

So it's a very compelling starting salary

after a 21 month program.

And again, that credibility of the FAA certification

just holds a ton of water with aviation employers

and wherever you would like to work,

we will support you in that journey

and help you make the connections

and help you be placed into a career there.

So once you come through after the 21 months,

do you have with placement to large airlines?

So like an American Airlines or a Delta, a JetBlue,

do they typically find those type of job openings

at that point?

Yeah.

Placement, as we call it,

or career services is our most sacred responsibility.

And we start that conversation.

You know, I used to say day one,

we start pre-enrollment now.

We want to sit down with students

and help them understand what the 21 months means

and then what a career looks like after school.

And so we talk to them about resumes

in orientation for their first class.

We talk to them about the plan to build a resume.

We have a platform I'm very proud of

on the placement side

where students will create a profile on day one.

They will, you know,

catalog their academic accomplishments.

You know, it's really a repository portfolio,

if you will, of everything they do

while they're in school.

It's where they'll build the resume.

We have videos, tutorials, and interactives

to practice interviewing.

You know, a lot of the folks

who come into a trade school,

they're not used to sitting across the table

talking to somebody about everything

that they've accomplished, right?

Like that's a new skill.

Those soft skills are just as important

as the hard skills in the hangar.

So we spend 21 months,

you know, placement is not something

we start when you graduate

or the month before you graduate.

We will start talking to you

about your career goals during orientation.

We will put you in our AimEdge platform

so you're building a resume,

building your skillset,

really building a repository

of everything you can do for employers

so that at the end of 21 months,

we want you walking off the stage

and into your next opportunity.

And right now you mentioned

some name brand employers.

The other thing I'm really excited about is,

I mean, aviation is at the forefront

of so much of our technology.

We have students that are working

for rocketry companies.

You know, we have a partnership with SpaceX.

You know, Blue Origin

is very interested in A&Ps.

We place students with NASA.

You know, NASA needs A&Ps

in addition to the name brand airlines

you mentioned.

And then there's regional MROs like AAR,

you know, huge employer of A&Ps.

It's a great job with a great company

that's got great benefits

and that you could stay with

for 10, 20, 30, 40 years if you want to.

So you can go to SpaceX.

You can go to NASA.

So you have options.

Absolutely.

Right.

Yeah.

I mean, that's an amazing point

to somebody who is thinking

about getting into aircraft maintenance,

you know, being a technician,

that you can go work for these companies

and, you know, spend 21 months.

And, you know, the people that are coming

and obviously it's the investment in,

like you want to stay.

Can you speak to, you know,

we spoke a little bit about it,

the ones, the qualities of individuals

that succeed versus the ones

that maybe it just is not for them.

What do you see?

What makes those individuals stand out?

Yeah.

When I speak to new student orientation,

the number one determinant of success

in my mind that I've seen

over the years with students

is if you're willing to ask for help,

you're willing to put in the work.

I'm very confident that you can get there.

We have an instructor led model.

The instructors are at the core

of everything we do.

And the folks that come out of a hangar

at a major airport or come out of,

you know, training in the field

for several years,

it's a special breed

that wants to come and give back.

It's a special breed that wants

to invest in our students.

And we invest in them

so that they can invest in our students.

And, you know, there's plenty of times

every time I'm at a school

after class is over,

an instructor will huddle

with three or four or five students

who just need some extra time.

We've got a variety of learning resources

that we, you know,

we really surround students

with an ecosystem of resources.

Students live in different,

students learn in different ways,

as you know, some of it's video,

some of it's text,

some of it's podcast.

And so the students

that raise their hand and say,

you know, we were going over OMS law today

and I'm just not quite there.

Our instructors are here constantly

and they will go that extra mile.

So there's a sense of curiosity with that.

There's also a sense of persistence

to answer your question.

The third is just resilience.

You know, these are not easy jobs.

They're fun.

They're rewarding.

But as I've mentioned,

you know, there's going to be days

if you're working in Las Vegas

where it's 110 degrees

and you're crawling around

in the belly of an aircraft, right?

That's not for everybody.

If you're aware of that going in

and then you're resilient

and persistent through that,

you will likely be successful here.

Yeah.

I also like also the soft skills

that you talked about.

You learn that side of it

because you can learn the tech side,

but the soft skills don't always come along.

And if you can teach that

within your organization

in the first couple of years

and they come out with that,

you know, they come out

with that extra piece

that really kind of helps them

day to day working

for a large organization.

I mean, that's a win-win.

And the ones that maybe are coming back

who want to help,

who want to teach that type of stuff,

that retention I'm sure is there as well

because they're successful in their career.

Maybe they want to give back.

Maybe they want to teach.

The actual trainers

or the ones, the teachers,

are these ones that decided

I just want to come back

and teachers like I've,

you know, I've gotten to a point

where I could retire

or I can come back.

What's the makeup?

Yeah, we definitely have

some folks later career

who have built a wonderful career

with wherever they work

and want to come back and give back.

We have some folks who are mid-career

and, you know, again,

aviation maintenance is 24 hours.

You're outside a lot.

You know, you've got a schedule to keep.

And there's folks

who are in the prime of life

who want to start a family

and, you know, want to settle

and like the idea of working at a school,

you know, during the day.

And so they'll, you know,

mid-career come and teach with us as well.

Those are our two largest buckets

is someone who for lifestyle reasons

loves aviation maintenance,

but wants to teach

and someone who is a little later

in their journey

and they want to give back.

Gotcha.

How important is the mentorship piece

of attaching yourself

to somebody who is a little bit

later down the road

who you want to aspire to?

How do you find those sort of individuals

and how do you attach themselves?

Because, you know,

once you find that mentor

it can cut that time in half for you

instead of trying to reinvent the wheel

and trying to figure it out yourself.

Have you seen that?

That's right.

That's one of the most important things.

When we really get it right with an instructor

and we have hundreds across the country,

I'm very proud of,

they see themselves in their students.

They remember what it's like

to be a nervous tech

walking in at 24 years old

to class for the first time, right?

And again, I'm a product

of traditional education.

It was the family business.

My dad was a college president.

My mom was a professor.

I worked in traditional for a long time.

I just have a sense here

that I don't see in a lot of other corners

of education

where the instructor sees themselves

in the student

and can relate almost instantly.

If the student is open and willing.

To your point on how do you find it

and how do you know when you have it?

It's an art, you know?

And that is something

we spend a tremendous amount

of time on internally.

As I mentioned,

it's an instructor-led model.

And hiring, evaluating, training,

evaluating, improving, coaching, training

our instructors

is just a significant amount of time,

effort, and energy for us.

Because that, we believe,

is a differentiator, right?

Yeah, we were talking

about the trainers, obviously.

And, you know, them giving back

and, you know, those are the ones

that are either at retirement

or just decided that, you know,

they want to get into more teaching

and education, which is great

because they have the real world experience.

They're coming back.

And what type of, I guess, percentage

do come back

when it comes to those educators?

Um, it's probably half.

It's probably about half and half, right?

Like about half of our instructors

are, again, later career folks

that have had a tremendous amount

of experience in the field

and are looking to give back.

So the upward mobility

for somebody who obviously

is making 60K coming out now,

where can they get to

for somebody who's saying,

well, OK, where's the ceiling?

People can move very quickly.

So what our industry partners,

students, even some unions

will tell us is really within five years,

someone could be up to

between 150 and 200,

depending on how much overtime they work,

what market they're in, et cetera.

So it can move very quickly

for folks from that, you know,

I would call 60 to 80,

really the entry level,

depending on market.

And then they could get to

within five years, 150 to 200.

And, you know, with maintenance,

I mean, it's such a significant

part of airline operations.

There's just a variety of career paths

that folks can move into.

Many move into management.

We mentioned the soft skills earlier.

You have leadership capabilities.

You enjoy working in and leading teams,

solving problems.

You can move into management

with one of our industry partners.

You could continue

in an individual contributor role.

You can move into research

and development.

Again, very exciting companies

at the forefront of technology,

whether it's a Lockheed Martin

and defense or a SpaceX

or a drone company.

If you're more experimental

and scientifically inclined,

you could move that route as well.

Yeah.

So you have options

that you can go to.

So there's a slight ceiling,

but you can go into management.

You can start in the field

and then you can come inside.

You can do more of the management

type of work, which is great.

So you have that option as well.

Are there any success stories

that really stick out to you

and say, you know,

that person really succeeded?

Anybody that you can share?

Yeah, I mean, there's so many.

We train about 25%

of the nation's aviation mechanics.

So 25% in any given year

between 20 and 25%

of the certified mechanics

came through an AIM institution.

There's thousands in any given year.

Each of our students

really is a victory.

You know, one of my favorite students,

you know, is down in Houston,

single mom, again,

went in the evenings,

went to school during the day,

you know, made all A's, 4.0,

worked hard.

That type of victory,

and what's really unique

about our students,

and you see this in other trades as well,

we have students like that.

Again, she was later in life,

graduated, you know,

in Houston making probably,

you know, around 80K.

And what's a victory

in that situation is,

imagine if you're a female,

and only, unfortunately,

about 3% of aviation mechanics

in this country are female.

About 10% of our students are female.

How many people told her

at the age of 40,

as a female with two kids

that she's raising as a single mom,

imagine how many people

in her life told her

that she couldn't do it

with the best of intentions, right?

It's not that anybody

was rooting against her,

but she has a lot going on in her life.

And, you know,

she just pointed at a goal.

And, you know,

I mean, the grit

and the determination

and the toughness

that someone demonstrates

to make it through like that.

I would like to think I have that,

but I don't even know

if I've been tested to that degree.

So, you know,

there's students like that, again,

who are later in life,

who have all kinds of circumstances

against them.

And then they, you know,

again, against all odds.

On the flip side,

you know, towards Gen Z students,

which is an increasing

part of our population,

about 70% of our students

are now Gen Z.

Again, you know, I was in,

I was in Charlotte

and met with a student.

He, you know, ended up

working on, you know,

the same planes

that he had dreamt about as a kid.

And, you know, his first job

was at a hangar that he grew,

his dad would take him to

when he was small,

just dreaming of maybe one day

I could be involved in aviation.

And again, he came out making,

you know, in the seventies.

And working at a place

he had dreamt of working as a kid.

And, you know, he's 20.