Like many people, Leon Haynes had plenty of time for self-reflection and thinking great thoughts during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the crisis eventually receded, the founder and CEO of Hosanna House in Wilkinsburg began looking for other ways the community center could broaden its impact. Along the way, he saw a study that showed the low numbers of minority workers in the airline industry, and a seed was planted for the agency’s next venture: training high school students and adults for jobs in aviation at its 14-acre campus along the Parkway East.
Now two years later, the agency has developed a sort of vocational education program to train students as licensed drone operators and prepare them for the equivalent of a learner’s permit to become licensed pilots. Six students from Propel Braddock Hills charter school are taking classes through Hosanna House this fall.
Last week, Johnstown-based Aerium, a leading advocate in Pennsylvania for aviation training, announced a three-year agreement with Hosanna House to serve at its western regional center to coordinate training programs at other facilities in the area. Aerium wants Hosanna House to be the model and leader for a half dozen similar regional coordinators across the state.
“We can’t think of anybody else in a better position than Leon’s program,” said Glenn Ponas, Aerium’s CEO, before announcing the agreement at the annual Aviation Council of Pennsylvania conference in Johnstown Tuesday. “They’re an ideal partner.”
Built on history
Hosanna House started as a community center under Covenant Church of Pittsburgh in Wilkinsburg, where Haynes is an ordained minister. It registered as a nonprofit agency in 1990, bought the former Horner Middle School building on Wallace Avenue in 1996 as its headquarters, then acquired a former recreation center on Sherwood Road along the Parkway East for its campus in 2003.
Over the years, it has built a series of programs that include a preschool, kindergarten, after-school activities, and summer camps for kids. It also has been involved in community development activities in the borough, including the ongoing construction of the 41-unit Penn-Lincoln Apartments at the former site of a hotel on Penn Avenue.
It took a measured approach in establishing the Center for Aviation Technology and Training. It started by familiarizing the community with the history of Black people in aviation.
Working with the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh and the Smithsonian Institute, it set up a small museum focusing on the history of the Tuskegee Airmen, the squadron of more than 1,000 Black pilots who broke the military color barrier in World War II and became top fighter pilots.
For two years, Haynes said, an average of 250 students a day visited the permanent display at Sherwood. In addition, a traveling exhibit to visit schools and community events is booked through 2027.
Haynes said planting that seed of interest and familiarity is key to building the aviation program. From air traffic control to aviation mechanics, pilots and drone operators, the industry is struggling to fill thousands of positions now with more coming in the future.
“[Students] don’t know what they want to be until they see what they can be,” he said. “In the times that we live in, workforce development is important. This is a perfect [area] for us to be involved in.”
Learning basics
About 18 months ago, Hosanna House started its aviation program with a teacher and two certified flight instructors to familiarize young people with operating drones and learning how to become a pilot. It also has two Redbird flight simulators and a bright yellow 1941 Piper Cub donated by Aerium.
James Tigner, Hosanna House’s aviation and marketing director, said last week that students who want to can begin their program by taking a “discovery” flight in a private plane because most of them have never flown before. Some are hesitant at first, but once a few try, most of them go for a ride before classroom instruction begins.
During a reporter’s visit to the Sherwood classroom last week, instructor NaCari Martin taught a complicated lesson on how to figure out how much weight a small plane is carrying and how to distribute it properly for a safe flight.
Then flight instructor Nepheir Valentino took the students outside to a playground basketball court that doubles as a practice course for flying a drone. Weeks earlier, they started by trying to navigate a drone around a series of huge traffic cones, but Valentino said many of them had a heavy hand from playing video games and needed more basic instruction first.
On this day, their job was to fly the drone the length of the court, turn it around, bring it back to the beginning and land.
“I’ve got to get them to be a little more under control,” he said. “They need to master left, right, forward and back.”
By the end of the program, the goal is for the students to become certified drone operators and be qualified for their learner’s permit to become a private pilot. Last year, four students qualified for what’s known as 107 certification for flying drones, but so far none has received a learner’s permit for becoming a pilot, according to Tigner.
Pushing the industry
Larry J. Nulton, a licensed psychologist with an interest in aviation, created Aerium and serves as the agency’s board chairman and CEO of the not-for-profit organization. It only has three employees, but it has lofty goals of expanding aviation education across the state and making Pennsylvania a key player in the aviation industry by partnering with programs at St. Francis University of Loretto, Johnstown-Cambria County Airport and now Hosanna House, among many others.
Aerium also has been a driving force behind Cambria County’s attempt to establish a nationally innovative drone program to deliver emergency medical supplies to patients in rural areas so patients can begin treatment before emergency personnel arrives. The program used a $1.92 million grant from the federal Department of Transportation to test the program over the summer and will soon submit results in an attempt to get federal funding for a permanent program.
Aerium’s focus is on forming partnerships and creating an environment for aviation to flourish because it doesn’t have the staff and funding to do that itself. That’s where programs like Hosanna House come in, Ponas told the Aviation Council on Tuesday, with Aerium’s role as a coordinator to provide others with the tools they need to run education programs and teach others how to run them.
Aerium already was familiar with Hosanna House and helped the program acquire its Piper Cub and flight simulators. Naming the program as the first regional coordinator to work with other programs in a concerted effort was a natural progression, Ponas said.
“We want to them and said, ‘If we provide the resources, will you be a regional hub for us?’” he said. “We want to create regional centers to teach aviation and how to grow those programs. Business as usual isn’t going to cut it.”
Under the three-year agreement, Hosanna House will work to expand its own program, coordinate with nearly a dozen other aviation programs in southwestern Pennsylvania such as Pittsburgh Institute of Aeronautics and Community College of Beaver County to expand courses and avoid duplication, and share best classroom practices with other teachers. The goal is for Hosanna House to be the model for a half dozen similar hubs across the state.
Haynes emphasized that collaboration will be the key.
“We cannot do this by ourselves,” he said to the aviation conference.
Ed covers transportation at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at eblazina@unionprogress.com.