"In 1993 Hurricane Andrew destroyed our facilities at Tamiami airport," says Marilyn Kern-Ladner, associate dean of MDCC?s aviation department. "The Dade County Aviation Authority was our landlord, and the people there understood that we had a school to run. They were committed to helping us find a new home. Just two days after the hurricane they told us about a vacant building at Miami International Airport. We wanted to go have a look, but with the entire infrastructure of Dade County a disaster, the only way we could get there was to fly a Cessna 152 from Tamiami into Miami International," she remembers. "We had to convince the tower to let us land, but they did, and we walked into the building ? all seven stories of it ? which hadn?t been used since Eastern Airlines had pulled out years before. I chose the two floors that seemed to be the least mildewed, and they were ours."
So the school had a building, but with only two weeks before classes were to start, the professors were left with no books, teaching aids, or flight simulators. Hurricane Andrew had destroyed all of them. "Yoel Hernandez, the chairman of the aviation department, was determined to start classes on time. He went to Pedro Sors, President and CEO of Pan Am International Flight Academy, which occupies a building just down the street from us. Sors immediately dug around in the academy?s back rooms and turned up all kinds of books and manuals for us to use," says Kern-Ladner. "Classes started in the new facility on time, and the teachers had materials. It was the beginning of a great relationship."
Pedro Sors agrees. "I have a strong feeling of involvement in my community, and that includes Miami-Dade Community College. It started when I gave the school some scholarship money. I struck up a relationship with Chuck Glass, then the dean. I saw that he was struggling to replace the simulators the school had lost in the hurricane. I was trying to sell a Boeing 707 simulator, and that?s how we got to talking," says Sors. It wasn?t long before Glass had worked out an arrangement with Sors.
Now the Eig-Watson School of Aviation owns one of Pan Am?s Boeing 727 class B simulators to go along with the teaching materials it was given (Sors? 707 went to another customer). The simulator rests in the same bay it always has at the Pan Am Flight Academy, but Eig-Watson students in the 727 Orientation class have first dibs on scheduling time ? and that time (18 hours per student) is included in the cost of the for-credit course. "I block 50 to 100 hours a month on the sim," says Kern-Ladner. Pan Am also has an air traffic control tower simulator that MDCC students can use (Miami-Dade has a similar set up down the street that Pan Am uses for overflow training in the summer). Recently, Pedro Sors endowed a professorial chair at the school, further cementing his commitment to aviation education and the relationship between the school and the academy.
Since the pact with Pan Am Flight Academy Kern-Ladner has reached out more than once to improve her student?s training opportunities. "The whole Pan Am partnership took some creative spirit among the upper echelon of Miami-Dade?s administration," she says. "They had to be shown the value of this innovation. But once we started, it wasn?t hard to see that the aviation industry is more than willing to team up with schools such as ours. We used to think we had enough to prepare these kids for the industry, but we know now that with a hand from industry, we can turn out exactly what companies are looking for."
For example, Comair Training Academy of Sanford, Florida, now runs the primary flight training arm of Eig-Watson, operating out of the Kendall-Tamiami Airport. The instructors are trained in airline procedures, and they pass that training on to the Eig-Watson students. Once the Eig-Watson students have their CFIs, they can apply for a job with Comair, teaching at the Kendall-Tamiami campus. If a student gets the job, he (or she) is automatically eligible, once the experience is logged, to interview for a position with Comair Airlines. Eig-Watson has similar arrangements with other airlines, with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, which occupies space in the same building, and the FAA for students studying everything from air traffic control to flight dispatchers and A mechanics.
On the top end, students in their last semester, or during the summer after graduation from Miami-Dade, have the opportunity to take the Boeing 727 course. For Juan Naranjo, that course led straight into his airline career. He took the course twice (at $450, plus $45 a credit-hour he could do that) and then was asked to be a teaching assistant. "After that, I taught the class," says Naranjo. A semester or two of teaching led him into an interview with Miami-based Carnival Airlines, and he was hired, along with another Miami-Dade graduate. Neither man had ever touched the controls of a real Boeing, and yet they finished their training class at Carnival in the number one and two slots.
"With the orientation course we give, our students have the chance to not only learn the airplane?s basic systems and handling characteristics, but also how to work in a crew," says Kern-Ladner. "And they do it at a pace conducive with their experience levels. During this course you can see these students transition into real team members. The leap in professionalism they demonstrate brings tears to your eyes. Besides that, it definitely puts them way ahead when they finally go for a 727 type rating and/or an airline interview," she says.
Once students complete their two years at Miami-Dade, Kern-Ladner sends them downstairs to Leo Haigley?s extended campus center for Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. "I?ve found it easier, even profitable to work with Marilyn over the last five years," says Haigley, director of the center. "We don?t offer flight programs here. We?re not in competition. We offer courses that directly feed from her lower-level courses, making it a natural transition from an associate of science degree in professional pilot technology to a bachelor of science in professional aeronautics for pilots, mechanics, and air traffic controllers. My courses are compatible with Miami-Dade?s, but they don?t compete. One of the two hot items in aviation right now is air safety and air cargo. I can concentrate my upper level classes on that, turning out people with bachelor and master of science degrees that are in demand," he says.
It?s an unprecedented relationship, these four schools (MDCC, Comair, Pan Am, and ERAU) working together to turn out the best qualified candidates for aviation careers, but it?s par for the course as far as Miami-Dade Community College is concerned. The administrators there have learned that it?s easy to be "the little school that could" if you tap into the resources around you. As for aviation resources in Dade County, Kern-Ladner has only just begun to count.
For more information on tuition costs, financial aid, and admission requirements, write Miami-Dade Community College Aviation Department, Homestead Campus, 500 College Terrace, Homestead, Florida 33030-6009; or call 305/237-5060.
