The ribbon-cutting ceremony outside the new classroom areas, which are attached to a large airport hangar and feature state-of-the-art flight simulation equipment, included Ohio Sen. Bill Coley, R-Liberty Twp., who is a pilot, and the first aviation class of 30 students.
“This is a great day. Aviation is a key. It’s a backbone to the economy in the United States,” said Coley. “And these people right here are going to be on the front lines on improving our aviation industry.
“Aviation skills are needed around the world and these (students) are going to be receiving their training right here. And when they finish at Butler Tech they are going to have options” at local colleges and universities. This is a partnership that will be helping to restore and rebuild the aviation here in Southwest Ohio,” he said.
It’s the latest of Butler Tech’s new campuses throughout Butler County and used the career school’s construction students to build the aviation center’s learning areas.
The students of the inaugural class are learning how to obtain an FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) drone pilot’s license, training in aircraft avionics and electronics and gaining experiences with aircraft airframes and power systems.
Last year, Middletown City Council approved a motion to lease part of the JETS hangar at the airport for the high school program’s launch.
Middletown received a state capital improvement grant of $750,000 in 2018 to build the new education hangar to support educational programs relating to aviation and aviation support.
Jon Graft, superintendent of Butler Tech, told a crowd of more than 150, including city and Cincinnati State College and Sinclair College officials, that students will gain pathways to college or to enter the aviation workforce.
It’s a pathway Monroe High School junior Zach Hoover said he is eager to explore.
“It’s a fantastic program and the best decision I ever made to come here,” said Hoover.
Matt King, president of Drone Camp and innovative teaching and learning specialist at Butler Tech, demonstrated the program’s futuristic flight simulator and said the program “is unique not only to Ohio but across the country.”
“Our students are learning from the APOA (Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association) ... the largest aviation group in the country so they are learning from certified people,” King said.
King said that when students graduate from the aviation program, “they will walk away with their drone FAA pilot license, or can test for an aircraft electronics technicians … or they can work on the outside of airplanes” after finishing their learning at Cincinnati State.
About Butler Tech
Butler Tech is one of Ohio’s largest career school systems and it serves students from 10 Butler County public school districts and from northern Hamilton County’s Northwest Local School District, which borders the county.
The Middletown Regional Airport learning center is the fourth new campus and campus addition added since 2016 by Butler Tech, with new campuses in Monroe, Hamilton High School and an expansion of the Bioscience Center in West Chester Twp.
Enrollment for both high school students and adults taking career education, professional certification and job training classes at Butler Tech is now more than 18,500 annually.
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