TRAVERSE CITY, Michigan — Legacy Aviation Learning Center has earned FAA certification as an approved Aviation Maintenance Technician School (AMTS).
The non-profit school, which borders Cherry Capital Airport (KTVC), is the vision of its co-founders, Dan and Peg Jonkhoff and Matt and Lauren Golba, who are all pilots.
The new school is supported primarily by the founders and buoyed by an American Rescue Plan Act grant for $500,000 from the Grand Traverse County Board of Commissioners.
“We are part of the pandemic recovery,” said Peter Lane, executive director and CEO of Legacy Aviation Learning Center. “We are training the men and women who will fill the essential job openings negatively impacted by COVID-19, developing our local community, keeping the U.S. economy running, and ensuring America remains first in aviation worldwide.”
While most AMTS programs are 18 to 24 months long, Legacy Aviation offers a 12 month timeline that accelerates a student’s trajectory into the workforce, according to officials.
Applications are being accepted now through Dec. 15, 2023, for the inaugural 25-member class, which is set to begin in January 2024.
“By the end of year three, we could be looking at 50 to 100 student seats available,” noted Lane.
The $35,000 cost to attend covers tuition, fees, Snap-On aviation specialty tools, textbooks, and learning management software. Financial aid is available, officials added.
Kalitta Air donated a Boeing 727-100 to the new school, Lane noted, adding students will work closely with Kalitta’s maintenance facilities team in Oscoda, Michigan, on heavy equipment, “ensuring career readiness.”
For more information: LegacyAviation.org or 231-600-7626.
I don’t want to sound negative towards a great new initiative…but…. I was the Dir of Ed at ECAT/Wyotech Boston when the new owners (Wyotech/Corinthian Colleges) wanted to reduce our program from 15 mos to 12 mos. An old friend was running a 12 mo school in Maine. I knew from his experiences that the mandatory 1,820 hr requirement as a part 147 school took absolute concentration by the students and staff to include doing the required make up on Saturdays and Sundays. Unless their program has some built in relief (lowering the standards) it’s going to be a challenge. That said, we must have more 147 programs if we are going to have the expected growth in world aviation.