Altus Air Force Base News

 

Grow Your Own Mechanic-Altus AFB reaps what it sows

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Nathan Clark
  • 97th Air Mobility Wing
ALTUS AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. (Feb. 25, 2015) --  Farming: it's been around almost as long as man and for good reason. Cultivating and growing products can be more practical than hunting; it provides a sense of accomplishment, sustains life and some see it as the ultimate link to power. So how does a U.S. Air Force base in Southwestern Oklahoma put farming to use?

Like major league baseball teams, Altus Air Force Base has been using a farming system, the Grow Your Own Mechanic program, cultivating quality aircraft maintainers and boosting manpower since 1999.

"The problem we have at Altus is we don't have many active duty aircraft maintainers and it's hard to find folks that want to come to Altus to stay," said Ray Brzozowski, 97th Maintenance Directorate chief of the training flight for maintenance operations. "One thing we've realized is there's a lot of young, local folks that want to stay here, but can't find jobs."

The solution for both parties was to partner up with the Southwest Technology Center in Altus and begin a school that gave civilians in the area a chance to learn a job that offered good security as well as a chance to serve our country.

"A majority of the people that are drawn to this program see what it is and think, 'I can get done with this program a year out of high school and then go to work for good pay,'" said Brzozowski. "You can't really do that anywhere else."

Students that go through this program spend the first year earning their airframe maintenance license and are then hired part time while they earn their power plant license, finishing with two FAA certificates, ready to go to work full time.

"It was very exciting when I was in the GYOM program," said Brandi Roblez, workforce requirements analyst and personnel liaison for the 97th Maintenance Directorate. "I had grown up around much smaller industrial aircraft so when I set foot on the big jets I was in awe!  I had great leadership and very knowledgeable trainers who recognized my ambition. Sometimes I would forget that I was a GYOM because they didn't treat me like a trainee but an equal."

Combining hands on training with guidance from three FAA certified airframe and power plant instructors and real world experience, Brzozowski said the program has been hugely effective with a more than 90 percent success rate.

Since the beginning of the program there have been 176 people that have completed the course, 106 of who are still working here, said Brzozowski. Currently, 15 percent of the maintainers working for Altus AFB came from the GYOM program.

Though the program has been very successful for the last 16 years, Brzozowski would like to see even more people come into the program to help alleviate the stress of staying manned, he said. "We're an older workforce; thirty-five percent of us are retired Air Force, 71 percent are former military and over the next five years we'll have 110 people eligible for retirement. We need way more, but without the GYOM program, there's no way we could sustain the manpower we need."

With possible thinning numbers, recruiting efforts have been improved by presenting at job fairs, having an aviation night at SWTC in addition to going to area high schools. 

"Our manpower has been steadily declining partly due to mission change, but this year has been the first year since 2004 that we've hired more people than we lost, with 59 leaving and 86 coming in," said Brzozowski.

In addition to the training GYOM students receive, they get all the benefits that come with working in the civil service. "This is easily the best organization I've ever worked for," said Brzozowski, "We take care of our own folks. You get all the normal benefits plus a chance to change shifts and positions, and we promote within so if you want to get into a higher position you can. It's just a good organization to work for."

The GYOM program has produced many qualified aircraft mechanics to help keep the mission going here at Altus AFB and plays a large part of the future of the 97th MX. 
"It's an awesome program and the reason is the opportunity it provides for local, energetic individuals to get a good paying job and stay right here in their home community," Brzozowski said. "I can't imagine what we would do without it."