NASA recently analyzed the U.S. aerospace industry workforce and discovered that there will be a shortage of approximately one million workers by 2030. The “aerospace industry” is a term that may be new to many folks who are not already involved. It includes jobs ranging in complexity from operating a metal stamping machine, to programing precision machining tools, all the way to engineering positions. That prompted NASA to call on states to develop proposals for “aerospace career hubs” which would bring a new influx of talent from rising generations.
When KAM caught wind of this opportunity, we jumped on it. Kentucky has several strengths that make it a great place to develop talent for the aerospace industry. First, there is a great deal of aerospace manufacturing here already. Kentucky’s aerospace exports total $17.8 billion annually. More than 260,000 Kentuckians already work in manufacturing. We also have many efforts around the state to influence young people to develop manufacturing and STEM careers.
Development of KY’s hub concept
Because there are a lot of efforts to encourage the growth of STEM careers among Kentucky students already, our first thought was “we don’t need to launch a new program – we need to rally all the existing efforts and find a way to tell the collective story.” Our concept is: Create a grassroots, decentralized gathering of stakeholders who are doing the work of promoting careers that support the aerospace industry in Kentucky. This hub of stakeholders will support each other, begin to gather data on our successes, and find ways to connect students with the next step in their careers.
Industry’s receptivity
Within the space of a few weeks (our timeline for developing the concept and submitting the paper was very short) we gathered support letters from several aerospace manufacturers and workforce organizations, including state agencies. It was remarkable that the first letters came from the industry partners. This indicated an high interest in the effort, not just conceptually from workforce professionals.
NASA workforce summit
After submitting our paper, Kentucky’s career hub concept was moved forward in the process, as one of fifteen finalists across the U.S. As finalists, we went to the Kenedy Space Center in September to attend the NASA workforce summit and present our concept. This event was a full two days of networking with our counterparts from across the country, and with NASA officials. We learned what efforts are underway within the federal government to stimulate interest in STEM careers, and what other states are doing to boost those signals locally. Several of the states commonly associated with aerospace were represented, including Florida, California, and Texas, but Kentucky is in a unique position with our $17.9 billion aerospace industry to increase the visibility of careers in this field and make a big impact.
Next steps
We gathered the stakeholders for a follow-up meeting during the Kentucky Industry Conference on October 28 to report on the NASA workforce summit and gauge interest in continued coordination. While the federal government is shut down we can’t expect input from NASA, but we can keep momentum here in Kentucky among our partners. There was unanimous agreement that quarterly meetings of the Kentucky Aerospace Career Hub should begin and we will use that energy to encourage greater coordination across the state and build a foundation for possible NASA in the future.