The new, two-building campus, which includes the school’s own airplane hangar, still has interior construction and finishing work to be done but the exteriors of each on the regionally unique campus are completed.
Despite the unfinished status, teachers and school officials came away impressed and eager to move in sometime in January after the campus is finished.
“I’m blown away. This is absolutely beautiful,” said Lindsey Wilkey, a math instructor in Butler Tech’s aviation program, which offers three career tracks to Butler County high school students: Pilot licenses for both manned and unmanned aircraft, aviation maintenance and aviation engineering, and airport management.
“The kids are going to be really excited about having their own space and their passions for aviation will only grow,” said Wilkey.
In recent years, Butler Tech’s aviation program has been taught out of cramped, make-shift classrooms in one of the airport’s hangars.
When opened, the $15 million, 30,000-square-foot hangar and learning center, located at 2301 Wedekind Drive in the northern portion of the airport grounds, will offer specialized programs designed to meet the growing demand for skilled professionals in the aviation industry.
The new school is designed to provide a pipeline of high school graduates with aviation and professional certifications ready to join the workforces at airports in Greater Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky and Greater Dayton areas or further study aviation-related fields at area colleges.
William Sprankles, superintendent of Butler Tech, joined the site tour and said economic impact of the new school’s graduates will be wide-ranging and deep.
“We recognize at Butler Tech the responsibility and the opportunity for us to influence the workforce and economy in the region,” said Sprankles.
“And it’s not just southwest Ohio. We believe this campus will influence (the aviation industry of) the entire Midwest region.”
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