The easy, lazy, pessimistic approach is to look around Clark County and sigh resignedly: We’re not Seattle or Everett. We’re not like that epicenter of the aviation manufacturing industry, which employs 83,700 people statewide. We don’t have huge buildings like the ones found at Boeing, which somehow must find ways to produce 33,000 commercial airplanes in the next 20 years.As it turns out, Leadership Clark County class members aren’t very good at sighing. But they’ve got a knack for designing team projects that yield big dividends for Clark County. Seven LCC members this year took on aviation education as their team project, only to discover enough wind beneath their wings to lift their project to staggering heights. Providing that lift is a network of stakeholders from the most obscure local dreamers to U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell.
Clark County might not be Seattle or Everett, but we’ve got 18 aerospace or aerospace-related companies employing more than 1,000 workers. Not a lot, maybe, but enough to matter. And the LCC team correctly deduced this is enough to position our community for a big role in the burgeoning aerospace industry. The timing is right: Many of those 83,700 aerospace workers are nearing retirement age.
Between the LCC team and Sen. Cantwell is a team of seemingly unaffiliated but still well-orchestrated players. At the Clark County Skills Center, the LCC team found Executive Director Dennis Kampe, who coincidentally was envisioning an aviation technology program within the next couple of years.
At Fort Vancouver National Trust, the team found President Elson Strahan, who says the trust is “ecstatic” about Pearson Air Museum partnering with the skills center to host the class.