Jabara campus cannot open too soon

If Wichita wants to remain the Air Capital, it must make sure that well-trained workers are available as the aviation manufacturers need them. So the overflowing classes in the Wichita Area Technical College’s aviation training programs and Cowley College’s airframe and power plant program are excellent news. So is the nearly 100 percent hiring rate of Cowley’s A&P graduates. It all signals that the sooner Sedgwick County’s $40 million Jabara Airport training facility opens, the better for the local economy long term.
Posted by Rhonda Holman

11 Comments

  1. time for change
    Posted October 17, 2007 at 7:15 am | Permalink

    Has the airport been taken over by the Wichita school district or is it still part of Circle school district?

    If it is still part of Circle are negotiations occuring with them?

  2. ken
    Posted October 17, 2007 at 8:07 am | Permalink

    Are the aircraft companies making any donations / contributions to the Jabarra school? Will Jabarra be required to show a profit?

    I don’t have a big problem with government providing seed money for industry specific training / education. However the industry and the training and education industry should provide the bulk of the funding for these projects.

  3. ksfarmgrrl
    Posted October 17, 2007 at 9:03 am | Permalink

    What do I always say here? Economic development is always about people, even though the big money guys want it to be about buildings and infrastructure and tax breaks.

    The shortage of workers is affecting rural Kansas as well.

    Why do we piss away money recruiting new or expanding businesses when we, as a state, dont have enough qualified workers to staff them?

    Hays has a website bragging about how they ALWAYS have at least 400 job openings that cant be filled. (of course, who would WANT to live in Hays?)

    And now this in a Clay Center mfg plant?

    Wonder how more tax breaks would help them (big eye roll)?

    It’s just a myth that rural Kansas has a surplus of good workers just waiting for jobs.

    http://www.midwestcoop.net/index.aspx?ascxid=fpQfStory&fpsid=30458&fpstid=2

    So…how is that “bring the businesses and jobs and the people will follow” thing working for Kansas?

    Richard Florida anyone?

  4. ksfarmgrrl
    Posted October 17, 2007 at 9:04 am | Permalink

    Focus on population and quality of life and the people will come. The jobs will follow, not the other way around.

    Maroons.

  5. CapnAmerica
    Posted October 17, 2007 at 9:13 am | Permalink

    Rhonda writes, “If Wichita wants to remain the Air Capital, it must make sure that well-trained workers are available as the aviation manufacturers need them.”

    But . . . but . . . but, I thought the Godlike “unseen hand of the marketplace” just makes goods and services APPEAR when they are needed.

    So, you’re saying, Rhonda, that the taxpayer should fund huge multinational companies like Spirit and Raytheon so they get “trained” workers.

    Because we could never expect industry to just TRAIN THEIR OWN workers. Geez, then the company would have something invested in them, and then it couldn’t just treat them like spare pipes.

    Yup, socialize the costs, privatize the profits.

    That’s the way the “free market” really works . . .

  6. CapnAmerica
    Posted October 17, 2007 at 9:14 am | Permalink

    Good posts as always, KSFrmGrrl.

  7. ksfarmgrrl
    Posted October 17, 2007 at 9:18 am | Permalink

    “Because we could never expect industry to just TRAIN THEIR OWN workers. Geez, then the company would have something invested in them, and then it couldn’t just treat them like spare pipes.”

    Like the GE theory of employment? Plug ‘em in, burn ‘em out. Replace ‘em.

    Yep. I just love how all these cons here hate welfare. Except when they dont.

    And I just love, as you pointed out, how they LOVE the freemarket. Except when they dont.

    Maroons.

    Corporate welfare = GOOD!

    Human welfare = BAD!

    Got it!

  8. ksfarmgrrl
    Posted October 17, 2007 at 9:20 am | Permalink

    “Good posts as always, KSFrmGrrl.”

    Thanks Capn. I’ve had a looooong time to think about the economic development situtation in Kansas. Too bad the answers are so threatening no one in the traditional e.d. community will even TALK about effective solutions.

    They’d rather just be the highest paid migrant workers in the nation…

    God FORBID anyone would try to change course and do something that actually WORKED!

  9. J R
    Posted October 17, 2007 at 9:21 am | Permalink

    Spot on Capn and kfg.

    That is EXACTLY how they think of and treat their workers. Been there done that.

  10. Kansas
    Posted October 17, 2007 at 9:23 am | Permalink

    I hear parrots…

  11. delsol
    Posted October 17, 2007 at 10:59 pm | Permalink

    Go KSFG.

    RRRRRiot on!!!