Aerospace workforce center to open at Wright State

An aerospace professional development center will open at Wright State University to fill the gap of employers searching for hard-to-find qualified employees in an industry losing large chucks of its workforce to retirements, officials said.

The center will open at the Wright State Research Institute this month, said state Sen. Chris Widener, R-Springfield.

“It’s going to be a pretty robust, dynamic center,” he said. “We felt like employers tell us we have jobs, but we can’t find the people properly trained and qualified.”

Wright State will work with aerospace and defense contractors and the government on the initiative. A formal announcement is expected today.

Widener said despite fears of automatic, across-the-board defense cuts next January, certain kinds of work will continue to be a priority in military aerospace. Ohio Aerospace Industry President Michael L. Heil said commercial aviation, meanwhile, faces “explosive growth.”

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