a community’s airport can play, and Winchester Regional Airport is fully equipped to take on the challenge. “We have taken great pains to try to further develop strategic relationships to ensure that our community partners know they can use us as a resource when it comes to workforce development programming. For us, we begin with youth as young as five-years old.” “We created a new program called Story Time at the Airport in coordination with our local library system. We invite the community and it is free to attend. A youth services librarian leads the show and we sing songs, read books, and get up close and personal to an airplane.” This innovative program has brought thousands of people to the airport and Winchester Regional Airport views this program as the cornerstone of its workforce development efforts. For the older grades, the airport has partnered with the five regional public school divisions to deliver aviation programming as well as hosting a first-ever Aerospace Education day for junior and senior high school students to visit the airport and learn about various aerospace careers. “Our connection with post-secondary education is extensive and growing. We supported Laurel Ridge Community College’s efforts to develop allnew curriculum that centers around unmanned systems in the future. That program pulled down first place in a workforce development category for a national award program hosted by the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International or AUVSI.” The airport has also a deep partnership with Shenandoah University, the region’s sole fouryear institution. Shenandoah now has an Aviation Studies program and is working on developing new curriculum that helps build the aerospace workforce in the Shenandoah Valley. UPGRADES LANDING AT THE AIRPORT As part of the overall capital infrastructure master plan for the airport, Sabo points to a few key priorities and work that has been completed as well as currently underway. 6 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 11, ISSUE 08
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