Techniques Feb 2013 - 52

Feature

Teaching Marketable
Skills with 21st-Century
Materials
By Kevin Hayes

Boeing’s workforce
concerns initiated
talks and funding
opportunities with
career and technical
education (CTE)
training educators
in vocational
and high school
programs around
Puget Sound.

hen an industry titan
calls the state governor
with concerns about a
labor shortage, you can
bet an action plan is not far behind. That
titan was Boeing, a $64 billion company
with 83,000 employees, and the governor
was Washington’s Christine Gregoire. In
2007, nearly 60 percent of the aerospace
workforce was 45 or older.1 At least 20
percent were aged 55 to 64, and many, if
not most, were already eligible for retirement. Boeing’s workforce concerns initiated talks and funding opportunities with
career and technical education (CTE)
training educators in vocational and high
school programs around Puget Sound.
In March 2012, Gregoire appointed Alex
Pietsch, formerly the head of economic
development for Renton, to become director of a new state aerospace office. In
addition, Pietsch will serve as executive
director of the Washington Aerospace
Partnership, an alliance of government,
labor and business that led successful
efforts to secure the Boeing 767 Tanker
contract and 737 MAX production for
Washington state.
Today, several educational programs
are enjoying success, while still more
began operations in 2012.

U.S. Leads the World
According to the Advanced Composite
Materials Association (ACMA), the U.S.
dominates the advanced composites
industry in manufacturing, product

52
Techniques

February 2013

research and distribution. There are
more than 500,000 people employed in
upwards of 7,000 companies, producing
everything from airplane bodies to sports
equipment to automobile parts. The
$70 billion industry’s projected 10-year
growth rate is nearly 8 percent, which
presents an array of opportunities for a
highly skilled worker.

What Are Advanced Composites?
Advanced composites are characterized
by the use of expensive, high-performance resin systems and high-strength,
high-stiffness fiber reinforcement.
These materials have been adopted
for use in sporting goods, where highperformance equipment like golf clubs,
tennis rackets, fishing poles and archery
equipment benefit from the light weight/
high strength offered by advanced materials. There are a number of exotic resins
and fibers used in advanced composites,
however, epoxy resin and reinforcement
fiber of aramid, carbon or graphite dominate this segment of the market. ACMA
estimates that more than 50,000 new
products could utilize advanced composite materials.

Puyallup High School
Launches Program
With district consent, a budget of $30,000
and heavy support from local technical colleges and industry, former shop
teacher Alex Macdonald put together one
of the first high school composite courses
www.acteonline.org

Techniques Feb 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Techniques Feb 2013