Do you want to be an American idiot?
It's plenty back seven hundred WLW. So if you knew this about our great state here in Ohio, we are not just the birthplace of aviation. I believe that because it says that right on your license plate. You know it's also one of the top spots for aerospace, aviation
and defense. We are the number one supplier, the number one supply ohioways to both Airbus and Boeing, with more than one hundred and ten thousand employees in the industry, six hundred companies in Ohio, and we right now you think, wow, we're pretty saturated. We can't train enough people to fill those jobs. And the future is looking really really bright for a lot of these trades within aerospace. And so
I'm sure you've heard about this. At Middletown Regional Airport, Butler Tech just open a brand new, state of the art, fifteen million dollar aviation center and this is for high school students and it's underway right now. The ribbon has been cut and in studios William Sprinkles, he's the superintendent in CEO of Butler Tech. Welcome to the studio, William.
Congratulations by the way, on the on the ribbon cutting, thank you for that, Sarah, thank you for having us, of course, And I think the biggest question to have for you, sir, is do you get to keep the giant scissors? What happens to the giant scissors you cut the ribbon on?
You know, the giant scissors didn't work at the ribbon cutting, are you kidding?
We had to have a pair of micro scissors.
You had a backup scissors shadowed underneath the giant scissors. The giant scissors the blade was too dull and didn't work.
And so I'm sorry.
We had some nail clippers and some micro scissors. That's not acceptable. It works, it works perfect. You're the CEO heads need to roll for this? Would you agree?
Not at all? But in the world of career tech, we made it work.
Okay, you made it happen. You think on the fly we always let's coect. I love it. People think, hey, aviation industry, everyone wants to be a pilot. That's not true, because you have maintenance, you have avionics, you have manufacturing, you have all these things. And and also we now have flying taxis that are being built in date and I believe if I'm not mistaken. So that's a whole other sector, a whole nother evolution and layer of aerospace.
We think aerospace, oh, ge, But there's so many more companies there. I'm sure ge is it has a hand in what the programming is that you do at Butler Tech William But other companies involved are what like, how many other companies I have to say and like, hey, here's here's we want to be job ready, this is a workforce development thing. How many companies have a seat at the table?
Sure?
At our ribbon cutting we acknowledged at least twelve companies that are from the region. Companies like CTL Aerospace Standard ERA, which are more in the manufacturing and the aero defense side. There's other smaller companies that are local A ANDP mechanics shop, companies that sit on the that sit on the Middletown runway, and so companies whether they're small in size or large
in corporate status. We try our best to welcome all of them and have a seat at the table and provide influence in the shape and the design of the curriculum and the experience that the students get.
Now, I often talk about this on my show, here you beat a trades guy myself and you were identifying with the hell you're a doctor now, so doctor sprinkles. They were both like tactile learners, right. You know in school, I was like, I'm looking at a book. I like, I don't get THEE for it. But you put something applied in front of someone, all of a sudden, the light bulb goes off. We have done for the last couple of generations, at least the poor job of that.
How much are we writing the ship now? It's starting to it's starting to come back to center a little bit.
I think many people would argue for career tech centers, we've already righted that ship. And it's important to name that because this idea that career tech centers were only for one type of student or a particular type of learner is outdated. In Butler Tech's case, we serve eighteen thousand students a day between the grades seven and twelve, and we serve an additional twenty two to twenty three
thousand learners a year in our adult education division. So in the grand scheme of one calendar year, we're going to serve over forty thousand people are going to access cred tech education from a Butler Tech location. That's cool class or even a weekend credentialing program.
Yeah, because I was a kid in you know, we have barely had shop class, and I was so into that. I loved it, and they took it away and basically said, well, if you want to do that, you've got to go this whole Shepherd school for the kids who are troublemakers, because the students go here and the dummies go there. And thank god, we finally blew that up right.
Yes, so you're correct.
In particular, in the late eighties and the early nineties, there's a lot of research about a particular type of family, a particular type of student. Those students were forced, persuaded, or channeled to career tech centers. And I'm proud to say now and really the last ten years at Butler Tech, but even today in twenty twenty six, we represent every single possibility for a student and a family. If you want to go right to the workforce, we have a
program for that. If you want to go to a two year school, we have a program that'll kickstart you and get you ahead and lower the cost of that two year journey and if you want to eventually go to a four year school or even your doctorate program. We have pathways that lead to those experiences, things such
as biomedical engineering and our bioscience center. We have something for everybody that leads to a high level education, a hands on education and hopefully it keeps families and students out of debt and poverty free.
And these are skills.
They are in demand because now you're partnering with the companies that so it's a great pipeline.
They're trained up.
And you hear that for college, the college path traditional for year university that young people will graduate, they'll come and they have no job skills whatsoever. Like they have this degree but no job skills. You guys are teaching not only the craft but also how to develop that you know, how to get in that situation, I guess is what I'm trying to say, and be actually just work from day one.
They don't have to retrain you like they do with a college degree. Yeah, so I appreciate that framing.
Our belief is that young people need to have the actual hands on skills and the actual processes of how to operate machines and equipment and the credentials to make
them successful in the workforce. We also believe our young people at Butler Tech have an opportunity to have the business acumen to not only be the person that works on the shop lore, but if they eventually aspire to want to be the CEO of the factory, they have that opportunity, and we give them those skill sets to start moving in that direction and can start their career.
The young people I mentor in the trades and trying to get them situated in which which type of trade with electrician, plumber, h F whatever it is, aviation. It's like, listen, you know you're smart enough to do this, okay, and go to school, but also keep an eye out how the business runs, because the goal some day is to
get you to own your own company. And that's true not for everybody, but for a lot of these kids are like, wow, I can do this, and I learned so much that I want to go and do it my way now and hire people and become the next generation of entrepreneurs.
Yeah, there's a lot of social media footage right now about one particular type of entrepreneur that's going to emerge because of the conflict with artificial intelligence is electricians. Electricians are going to triple their worth and triple their value. The cost that you're going to be able to charge and to make and to create profit share by being in a high skilled electrician is not something that artificial intelligence is going to take over that trade of soon.
Anyways, my nephew moved here from out West and he's like, I just want to work. I want to get a job, and I want to go to school. He said, what should I do? And I will consider trades. I've mentioned aviation he goes. He goes, well, which one has the most gross and said, hands down, electrician because of data farms, because of the infrastructures, Like you're gonna have a job
for the rest of your life and beyond. You may be working from the grave if you want to, but you're gonna make great money and you're gonna meet and demand do that because we need electrical workers more than anything.
WILLIAMS.
Sprinkles is the superintendent CEO Butler Tech. They just opened a fifteen million at state of the art aviation centered Middletown Airport and its workforce development. We're talking about Ohio is the number one supplier to Airbus and Boeing, and there's one hundred and ten thousand jobs and it's growing here in Ohai. If you're looking to get in a
profession's can be around for a long time. We have despite what you see with TSA lines and everything else in that nightmare, and maybe that goes to show you need more workers. But air travel and cargo with on demand is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. If you thought it was already big, it's going to get much bigger. The projection is maybe even triple in just a number of years where we are right now. That's kind of hard to believe. But you need the bodies in there too.
And you hear about AI and automation coming for jobs that doesn't apply here, does it?
Well?
It it does many of the trade pathways. Here's the thinking.
If you think that you are going to be replaced by a robot, you probably are. You have to be willing to work with the emerging technology and work with robots. So there's a lot of technical pathways that are working with cobots. There's a lot of technical pathways that have to learn how to navigate the prompt engineering to embed AI inside of the pathways. It's not something that AI
is exclusive from being invasive of those pathways. We're pushing all of our students, all of our teachers, all of our staff to embrace artificial intelligence and make sure that they're on the cutting edge of what's happening in those particular trades, industries and local local pipelines. Yeah, because you it's not something you can fight at this point. If you're not embracing it and working alongside it, it's going to be a competitor for you eventually.
Yeah, and you know, you're right, there's going to be a displacement. But I'm wondering, you know, if you're an AVIA, if you're a mechanic, for example, AI is not gonna it may it may augment your job, it may change some things as being a force multiplier for you, but you still have to get in and fix that engine or that part. AI is not in a robots to be able to do that because you have to have the critical thinking which may be augmented by AI, but you still have to do it with your hands as
opposed to a robot. So I think those jud But I wonder about pilots. You know, we know, there's a massive pilot shortage right now. When you can't get enough pilots, do we start to see as is autonomous airplanes a thing's going to happen.
There's a lot of companies that are investing billions of dollars into the regional economy here in the Greater Cincinnati great and Dating great in ed Area, great in Dayton areas, Greater Dayton areas such as such as Jobi. Yeah, that specialize in the vertical lift and take off. Is that the air taxis I was talking about. It is the
air taxis and so those are still being piloted. They're what we're seeing right now in industry is they're making a shift from delivering goods and content and packages that are in particular weights to figuring out the volume of how many people that they can transport. And then you have to figure out how the airspace is regulated for the particular size of those particular aircrafts and how they work in airspace.
And that's a whole nother a.
I see AI managing air traffic too, air traffic controllers, it's gonna be AI. It's gonna be a while before one of us goes Yeah, I'm gonna get on this plane with no pilot. It's that's gonna take a minute, that's gonna take him in.
Well, there's already the autonomous cars that are predominantly in the larger metropolitan areas. They're they're out west in Phoenix. When I was in Phoenix for a conference, they're out west and it's crazy, right, and you they're fully autonomous.
Yep, no driver in them. It's not that far off. Yeah, it's not.
It's just again, the early adopters will be like, I may try this if I'm adventurous, but I can see how people get nervous about that. But in the future, in you know, twenty thirty, forty fifty years, it'll just be ah, this is what we do. We have Bilois, we don't need it. It'll look like the Jetsons correct, and we're headed that way. What is your completion rate and also placement rate for new grads? Now, granted you just opened the center right now, but I'm sure you
have a target. But what's your success been. We have two answers for that.
Our graduation rate at bull at Tech for the last ten years is ninety nine percent. Nine percent some years it's one hundred. The lowest it's been is ninety nine. The students that complete our secondary pathway, which is the equivalent of a high school diploma, those students we're graduating ninety nine percent of our students.
And shout outs to not only our staff, but all.
Of the partner schools that have partner based relationships that feed into Butler Tech. That's important to acknowledge our relationship with them. And on the adult education side, our placement rate is ninety percent for adult learners of every single ethnic group that we have, so that means white students, Black students, Asian students, Hispanic last Hispanic Latino students, multi
racial students. Ninety percent of students from any subgroup. That's incredible, get placed into a job of the of the pathway, of the credential that they acquired within six months.
That goes to show you just how successful and why this fifteen million dollar plan is needed. So on that, I know, the median wage for someone in the aerospace industries like right around six figures, right, one hundred thousand dollars people leaving with that degree leaving Butler Tech, what are they earning?
Students are not leaving Butler Tech with a degree after their high school experience. What they are leaving with is a series of high level credentials that are accepted and embraced within the industry in multiple different subpathways. So at our Aerospace Center, students will filter through one of three pathways. There is the aerospace pathway, which many students will lead right into college.
That's a four year pathway.
Students matriculate to four year universities if they want to focus on aerospace, or many of those students will head into manufacturing careers that work for Department of Defense and other types of industries like that. There are students that will be the mechanics, which is the AMP the airframe and power plant mechanic pathway. That particular industry has thousands of jobs within a two hour radius of the greater
Cincinnati area. And then the third pathway, students will have the opportunity to earn various different credentials for their private pilot license. Their private pilot license can be for their personal aircraft, can lead to the ability to fly a corporate aircraft, and it can also lead to your drone license,
which is huge in various different sub industries. Right now, such as defense, real estate, construction, and that list goes on and on and on, and of course industries like yourself in the media industry.
Yeah, yeah, that's fascinating.
So you're pretty much guaranteed a job, you know, and not only that, the success rate is so high it's a no brainer. Not I think it may be for somebody who's going, wow, am I going to get laid off? I've got laid off again? I maybe you want to pivot career. Why see adult education program is wonderful. It is the brand new Butler Tech Aviation Center at Middletown Regional Airport. William Sprinkle, Superintendent and CEO Butler Tech, thanks for popping in today.
Appreciate it. Thank you for having me.
And what would be important to also acknowledge is we have a ribbon cutting for our brand new bioscience center in one month on April thirteenth, which is strictly about the forecast of jobs in this market for healthcare, which is one of the most booming in demand fields.
This state. Has gonna bring the good scissors this time for that one. We're going to bring the good scissors. Don't you can do it once and screw it up. Yeah, I can't have it twice though, You're gonna have to. We're going to bring the great ribbons, practice ribbon, practice scissors. Let's do put a little work in sprinkle. We got it, well, got it. Appreciate you. Thanks for coming to all right, thanks again.
Got to get the news update in here momentarily slowly.
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