As Piedmont Triad International Airport lures aviation companies pledging to create several thousand jobs, Guilford County Technical Community College is expanding to train them.
Gov. Josh Stein, North Carolina Senate President Phil Berger and other officials are scheduled to attend a groundbreaking Wednesday, Oct. 15, for a $34.6 million expansion of the college’s aviation training. Slated to open in 2027, the 70,000-square-foot center will be located on GTCC’s Cameron campus, just northwest of the airport, in the first phase of the school’s new aviation campus.
In recent years, futuristic plane makers JetZero and Boom Supersonic and aircraft maintenance company Marshall USA selected Greensboro’s airport for major facilities, based partly on the availability of labor and training in composite development, repair, assembly and other areas.
Longstanding tenants such as Honda Aircraft Co., which have expanded over the past 20 years, also rely upon GTCC graduates for employees. Greensboro’s North Carolina A&T State University and community colleges in Forsyth, Davidson and Rockingham counties also educate students in engineering, advanced manufacturing and other aviation-related skills.
With the new building, GTCC will expand its capacity by 40%, allowing it to educate more than 700 students a year, the school said in an advisory before next week’s groundbreaking. Funds from the state and Guilford County are paying for the expansion.
GTCC has offered studies in aviation maintenance, management and avionics for 55 years. It has added programs such as composite technology to meet the demands of aviation employers.
As a first step in its plans to spend $4.7 billion and hire more than 14,500 people over the next decade, Long Beach, California-based JetZero is going to create a research center for developing light-weight composite materials, Dan De Silva, the company’s president and COO, told reporters in August.
