[Speaker 0] Good morning, Northern Michigan. This is Mike, and
[Speaker 0] this is Cup of Traverse City for the
[Speaker 0] seventh of December twenty twenty five. And, yes,
[Speaker 0] I said this is going to be a
[Speaker 0] weekday podcast, but I figured I'm gonna throw
[Speaker 0] a special episode in once in a while.
[Speaker 0] I'm also gonna put this out on Mike
[Speaker 0] Dell's world, so that's the way it works.
[Speaker 0] But, anyhoo, I had the pleasure of interviewing
[Speaker 0] Dan Jonkoff. He's the founder and current chairman
[Speaker 0] of the board and, all that for Legacy
[Speaker 0] Aviation Learning Center. Aviation it's an aviation school
[Speaker 0] here in Traverse City that, boasts the fact
[Speaker 0] that you can start and finish within one
[Speaker 0] year and become an A and P, which
[Speaker 0] is a airframe and power plant person for,
[Speaker 0] you know, mechanic on aircraft. And what's cool
[Speaker 0] about, you know, being one year is, normally,
[Speaker 0] it takes two years. Or if you do
[Speaker 0] an apprentice program, it takes three plus years.
[Speaker 0] So this works out pretty well for the
[Speaker 0] students. And, they're a nonprofit, so it's, you
[Speaker 0] know, it's all for a good cause. So,
[Speaker 0] anyway, I've got an interview with Dan, and
[Speaker 0] I'm gonna play that here. And everybody have
[Speaker 0] a good Sunday. So today, I'm at Legacy
[Speaker 0] Aviation in Traverse City. It's a, A and
[Speaker 0] P school, but I'll let, the founder and,
[Speaker 0] chairman of the board, Dan Junkoff, that will,
[Speaker 0] will tell you all about it. How are
[Speaker 0] you doing, Dan?
[Speaker 1] Great, Mike. How are you?
[Speaker 0] So far, so good. I just all coffeed
[Speaker 0] up and, you know, we already had one
[Speaker 0] incident today. So
[Speaker 1] Well, you called me chief cooking bottle washer,
[Speaker 1] and I cleaned it up.
[Speaker 0] So Yeah. There you go.
[Speaker 1] You're absolutely right.
[Speaker 0] Yeah. I had a little coffee incident here
[Speaker 0] in the office, but, but, that's alright. So,
[Speaker 0] tell us a little bit about, you know,
[Speaker 0] how this all got started and what's the
[Speaker 0] goals, you know, just hey. Give me your
[Speaker 0] give me your spiel.
[Speaker 1] Well, sure. Glad to do it. It's been
[Speaker 1] a fun journey so far. And it all
[Speaker 1] started when, I retired from my, first career,
[Speaker 1] and only career other than, what I'm doing
[Speaker 1] here at Legacy Aviation Learning Center is I,
[Speaker 1] was a funeral director and owned, funeral homes,
[Speaker 1] and I was a fifth generation. And finally,
[Speaker 1] my daughters took over. They're both funeral directors.
[Speaker 1] And, so it was important that I let
[Speaker 1] them be on their own. Be Yeah. Why
[Speaker 1] not? A funeral home where, you know, every
[Speaker 1] young person should do, and that's make it
[Speaker 1] even better than I left it.
[Speaker 0] Yeah.
[Speaker 1] And, so I was, talking with my wife
[Speaker 1] and telling her how, retirement was really boring.
[Speaker 1] You know, know, I was used to working
[Speaker 1] seven days a week, twenty four hours a
[Speaker 1] day, like often funeral directors do, and, because
[Speaker 1] nobody makes an appointment, when they're gonna die.
[Speaker 1] Right?
[Speaker 0] Correct.
[Speaker 1] Yep. Anyway, so, she said, well, gosh. You've
[Speaker 1] been flying for, like, forty five years. You
[Speaker 1] should, you know, do something at the airport.
[Speaker 1] And I looked at her and said, boy,
[Speaker 1] I've always wanted to be on the airport
[Speaker 1] authority. And she said, well, you should apply.
[Speaker 1] So I, called the airport authority, and they
[Speaker 1] said, well, believe it or not, the deadline
[Speaker 1] to apply is tomorrow at five o'clock. And
[Speaker 1] so I quick called the, person that's supposed
[Speaker 1] to get the, application. She said, I'll send
[Speaker 1] it to you. You gotta have it to
[Speaker 1] me by five o'clock tomorrow. And I, did
[Speaker 1] everything she said. And, next thing you know,
[Speaker 1] I was, called to do an interview, and
[Speaker 1] there were five or six people interviewing. And
[Speaker 1] I did the interview with a, whole bunch
[Speaker 1] of people in the room, county commissioners and,
[Speaker 1] and, administrative type people. And, next thing you
[Speaker 1] know, I got appointed to the airport commission
[Speaker 0] Yeah.
[Speaker 1] Which was kinda exciting.
[Speaker 0] Yeah. Sure is. I've been to a couple
[Speaker 0] of those meetings.
[Speaker 1] Yeah. Well, our airport has turned into an
[Speaker 1] authority from a commission, because we finally you
[Speaker 1] know, we're gonna have a million people, come
[Speaker 1] in and out of our airport on the
[Speaker 1] airlines, this year, over a million, actually. And
[Speaker 1] so now we have our own police force,
[Speaker 1] our own fire department, our own in house
[Speaker 1] attorney, our own in house engineer. It's quite
[Speaker 1] the little airport. We're now the third biggest
[Speaker 1] airport in the state of Michigan.
[Speaker 0] Yeah. And I think I think last I
[Speaker 0] looked, you're the second busiest.
[Speaker 1] Oh, really?
[Speaker 0] Yeah. I think that was what I had
[Speaker 0] read somewhere.
[Speaker 1] I don't know how that could be true.
[Speaker 1] I gotta believe Grand Rapids and Detroit beat
[Speaker 1] us out. But Yeah.
[Speaker 0] So maybe maybe it was the third.
[Speaker 1] I don't remember. Third is probably the right
[Speaker 1] answer. I hate to say it. But, anyway,
[Speaker 1] so I got on the, the authority, and
[Speaker 1] the, orientation consists of showing everybody who is
[Speaker 1] new to the authority every square inch of
[Speaker 1] the airport. Mhmm. Did I say every square
[Speaker 1] inch?
[Speaker 0] Oh, yeah.
[Speaker 1] Truly the truth. And, so went through the
[Speaker 1] building, went through the parking lots, went through
[Speaker 1] everything, and we even decide then get in
[Speaker 1] a car and we drive up and down
[Speaker 1] and all around the airport. And, we go
[Speaker 1] by all the buildings, explain what's in them,
[Speaker 1] who's in them, what they do. And we,
[Speaker 1] stopped in front of the building we're in
[Speaker 1] right now doing this interview. And, Kevin Klein,
[Speaker 1] our, the director of our airport executive g
[Speaker 1] CEO, he says, you know, isn't it the
[Speaker 1] same? That airport that building right there is
[Speaker 1] gonna be sold tomorrow or the next day,
[Speaker 1] and it's gonna be sold for a non
[Speaker 1] aviation use. And he says
[Speaker 0] I heard rumors about that.
[Speaker 1] Yeah. Everybody heard rumors. Well, the rumors were
[Speaker 1] that it was gonna be sold to people
[Speaker 1] who are gonna grow marijuana in it. Well,
[Speaker 1] as soon as it becomes a non aviation
[Speaker 1] use, this particular building is on city property,
[Speaker 1] not airport property, and it has what they
[Speaker 1] call a hole in the fence. Yeah. But
[Speaker 1] as soon as, it's a non aviation use,
[Speaker 1] the hole in the fence gets closed forever,
[Speaker 1] never to open again. So I went home,
[Speaker 1] told my wife that, look, we can't let
[Speaker 1] this cool building, you know, become a non
[Speaker 1] aviation use, and have the hole in the
[Speaker 1] fence go away. And she said, well, how
[Speaker 1] much is it? And I told her, she
[Speaker 1] said, well, you need a partner. For sure.
[Speaker 1] So I got I called a couple of
[Speaker 1] friends and, one of them said, absolutely. I'm
[Speaker 1] in. I'll be your half partner in this
[Speaker 1] building. So we called up the owner and
[Speaker 1] said, look, we've got, we're gonna do something
[Speaker 1] with that building. We don't know what it's
[Speaker 1] gonna be, but, we're gonna help kids, and
[Speaker 1] we don't know how.
[Speaker 2] Yeah. But we're gonna do something a lot
[Speaker 2] better than possible other uses that are being
[Speaker 2] yoked at. Right. And,
[Speaker 1] possible other uses that are being looked at.
[Speaker 0] Right.
[Speaker 1] And, and he said, well, I'll have to
[Speaker 1] think about that. And he stopped the other
[Speaker 1] sale to think about it. I presume. I'm
[Speaker 1] not actually sure about that, but I know
[Speaker 1] it was supposed to happen quick. And, he
[Speaker 1] came back to us and said, it's yours.
[Speaker 0] Nice. It's a nice building. It's been used
[Speaker 0] for a couple other things. You know, in
[Speaker 0] the front half of the building, it was
[Speaker 0] a TV station at one point. I forget
[Speaker 0] what else was in here, but, you know,
[Speaker 0] and then, somebody had rented the the hangar
[Speaker 0] part and, you know, but it's it is
[Speaker 0] unique that you have that hole in the
[Speaker 0] fence where the building's not owned or not
[Speaker 0] on on, land that's, so you own the
[Speaker 0] land with the building where if you build
[Speaker 0] something on the airport, you get a lease.
[Speaker 0] Right? Is that how that works?
[Speaker 1] That's exactly how it works. And all of
[Speaker 1] a sudden, you know, your world is governed
[Speaker 1] by the FAA, TSA, and and everybody else
[Speaker 1] that has to live on the airport. And
[Speaker 1] we're not governed by any of those people.
[Speaker 1] Right. We just pay taxes to the city,
[Speaker 1] and that's pretty priceless.
[Speaker 0] Yeah. For sure.
[Speaker 1] You know, we have a lease that's not
[Speaker 1] a fifty year lease or a hundred year
[Speaker 1] lease. It's a forever lease till I sell
[Speaker 1] it.
[Speaker 0] Yeah. And
[Speaker 1] I don't have to get anybody's permission on
[Speaker 1] who I sell it to. Yeah. It's a
[Speaker 1] it's a
[Speaker 0] beautiful building, and you guys really have it
[Speaker 0] fitted out pretty well for its intended use
[Speaker 0] now.
[Speaker 1] Yeah. Yeah. A friend of mine actually built
[Speaker 1] it a long time ago when I was
[Speaker 1] probably in my late late twenties, believe it
[Speaker 1] or not. And, he used to have a
[Speaker 1] King Air, and he would drive it into
[Speaker 1] the hangar. And then he went It's a
[Speaker 0] big hanger.
[Speaker 1] Back it out of the hangar. And he
[Speaker 1] had a garage door opener that opened the
[Speaker 1] door when he arrived, and it was pretty
[Speaker 1] slick.
[Speaker 0] Yeah. The guy I knew that, rented it
[Speaker 0] for a while had a King Air ninety
[Speaker 1] Yeah.
[Speaker 0] In here.
[Speaker 1] That's right.
[Speaker 0] It's probably the same guy.
[Speaker 1] Bob Andrews?
[Speaker 0] No. I'm thinking Bob Goff.
[Speaker 1] Bob Goff, actually. I think he
[Speaker 0] did After that.
[Speaker 1] Yep. So Isn't that something? I'd forgot Bob
[Speaker 1] was here. You're right.
[Speaker 0] Yeah. I flew with him several times.
[Speaker 1] Yeah. Well, anyway, after we, we got the
[Speaker 1] building, we, didn't quite know what to do
[Speaker 1] with it that was gonna help kids, but,
[Speaker 1] you know, we threw a lot of stuff
[Speaker 1] at the wall. Right? Ideas, we had people
[Speaker 1] come and giving us ideas. We had all
[Speaker 1] kinds of ideas, but nothing stuck great. But,
[Speaker 1] then one day the idea of, well, gosh,
[Speaker 1] it would make a great, you know, mechanic
[Speaker 1] school, a and p school. Yeah. And, so,
[Speaker 1] it kinda slid down the wall pretty slow.
[Speaker 1] It didn't flat drop off the wall after
[Speaker 1] we we threw the idea there. So we
[Speaker 1] checked into it. And just as we were
[Speaker 1] getting ready, this was happening. The FAA changed
[Speaker 1] the rules on how A and P schools
[Speaker 1] work. Mhmm. They changed the rules because That
[Speaker 0] never happens.
[Speaker 1] Yeah. Hardly ever happens. Right? Well, they changed
[Speaker 1] the rules because there's a huge shortage of
[Speaker 1] AMPs coming up. Over six hundred thousand, AMP
[Speaker 1] shortage in the next ten years or so,
[Speaker 1] worldwide. And, they realize that somebody's gotta speed
[Speaker 1] the process up a little bit. So they
[Speaker 1] changed it from a time based school. In
[Speaker 1] other words, taken at least two years of
[Speaker 1] AMP school to become an AMP to a
[Speaker 1] knowledge based.
[Speaker 0] And and for those not aviation savvy, AMP
[Speaker 0] is airframe and power print plant. Airframe and
[Speaker 0] power plant. See, English is optional today.
[Speaker 1] Yeah. And that means that they can work
[Speaker 1] on anything that's flies, and they're licensed by
[Speaker 1] the FAA, the United States government's agency that
[Speaker 1] takes care and governs all all things that
[Speaker 1] fly.
[Speaker 0] Right? Thick book that everybody has to have.
[Speaker 1] Right. Yep. All the FARS. Well, anyway, so,
[Speaker 1] we found out that it was now knowledge
[Speaker 1] based. And so I looked at, my partner
[Speaker 1] and he and said, you know, I'll bet
[Speaker 1] you that there's a lot of fluff in
[Speaker 1] those two year schools. And I bet we
[Speaker 1] can do it in one year. And so,
[Speaker 1] it just so happened that I was at
[Speaker 1] a conference, and then I sat next to
[Speaker 1] a gentleman who was clearly the smartest man
[Speaker 1] in the room. And it turns out that
[Speaker 1] he was the one who helped the FAA
[Speaker 1] see that there was a different way that
[Speaker 1] it could be done that could speed up
[Speaker 1] how many mechanics get into the workforce so
[Speaker 1] they can start training and learning and fill
[Speaker 1] the gap that's gonna happen. And, I talked
[Speaker 1] to him and he said, yeah. Absolutely. You
[Speaker 1] could do it in a year and and
[Speaker 1] I'll help you. And, he had his PhD,
[Speaker 1] doctor Sean Galligan, and, he said that, you
[Speaker 1] can make it happen. And so we called
[Speaker 1] the FAA and said, hey. We wanna start
[Speaker 1] a school here, and we wanna make it.
[Speaker 1] So it's a twelve month program. And they
[Speaker 1] said, yeah. Well, that'll take a lot of
[Speaker 1] paperwork. Let's see how that goes. Yeah. And,
[Speaker 0] weren't you guys the first school?
[Speaker 1] We're one of the first. Yeah. That's right.
[Speaker 1] And doctor Galligan helped us to do it.
[Speaker 1] And the, he had everything, all the syllabuses,
[Speaker 1] all the he just had it all set
[Speaker 1] up. He just knew what it would take
[Speaker 1] and how long each class should take. And,
[Speaker 1] you know, it was amazing how smart he
[Speaker 1] was is. And, but about doing it. Next
[Speaker 1] thing you know, the FAA said, we can't
[Speaker 1] find any flaw in this. No kidding. You're
[Speaker 1] you're being tutored, by doctor Galligan. He's super
[Speaker 1] smart, and he helped the law to get
[Speaker 1] passed. And, next thing you know, we had
[Speaker 1] our license and we started. And we started
[Speaker 1] with only three kids because the FAA didn't
[Speaker 1] approve us till November. But three months later
[Speaker 1] in January or three months six weeks later,
[Speaker 1] we started with three kids. That's as many
[Speaker 1] as we could recruit. And, we learned from
[Speaker 1] them and they learned from us, and they
[Speaker 1] graduated in a year. And it was pretty
[Speaker 1] darn exciting. We've gone from there. And so
[Speaker 1] far, we've had, twenty five about twenty six
[Speaker 1] kids graduate, in two years, and we got
[Speaker 1] twenty seven kids in the class right now.
[Speaker 1] And our next class, which starts August, of
[Speaker 1] twenty six, will have about forty five to
[Speaker 1] fifty kids in it. And that's where we're
[Speaker 1] gonna stop at fifty kids.
[Speaker 0] And you're gonna be doing two shifts on
[Speaker 0] that one, probably.
[Speaker 1] No. But we're gonna be able to do
[Speaker 1] two sides of the building. Mhmm. And we're
[Speaker 1] gonna hire two more instructors, so we'll have
[Speaker 1] four instructors for fifty kids. Nice. And that's
[Speaker 1] a great ratio of teaching. That's a unique
[Speaker 1] ratio because we're teaching a lot. This is
[Speaker 1] Yeah. Yeah. You You know, you come to
[Speaker 1] our school and if you miss a day,
[Speaker 1] you gotta make it up at night or
[Speaker 1] you gotta you know, we have instructors that
[Speaker 1] come at night, adjunct instructors, and we have
[Speaker 1] adjunct instructors here on Saturdays, and the kids
[Speaker 1] have to make up time. Yeah. And it's
[Speaker 1] intense.
[Speaker 0] Yeah. Imagine. You know, I went through, Air
[Speaker 0] Force maintenance school and, you know, that was
[Speaker 0] pretty intense, but we only did, like, four
[Speaker 0] hours a day or six hours a day
[Speaker 0] or something. And, this sounds a little more
[Speaker 0] intense.
[Speaker 1] Our kids get here at seven o'clock in
[Speaker 1] the morning, because we wanna teach them what
[Speaker 1] it's like to work a real shift.
[Speaker 0] Mhmm.
[Speaker 1] Shifts start at seven o'clock in the morning
[Speaker 1] at the major airlines and then and in
[Speaker 1] a lot of maintenance shops, even, general aviation,
[Speaker 1] and we wanna teach them how to get
[Speaker 1] up that early. Lot of them didn't do
[Speaker 1] that when they went to high school. Right?
[Speaker 1] And, so they start and they go from
[Speaker 1] seven to three, five days a week. And,
[Speaker 1] and it's all learning. You know, there's incredible
[Speaker 1] amount of book work. They gotta take their
[Speaker 1] FAA exams. We allow them to take it
[Speaker 1] as they go. Mhmm. They gotta take, three
[Speaker 1] written exams that they have to pass, and
[Speaker 1] they gotta take two oral and practical with
[Speaker 1] FAA examiners. Yeah. And, they all they can
[Speaker 1] do that all in a year.
[Speaker 0] Yeah. It's it's amazing. And, you know, this
[Speaker 0] hangar out here, you you know, they get
[Speaker 0] a little, on, you know, they get practical
[Speaker 0] experience working on stuff.
[Speaker 1] We can do so many different, projects out
[Speaker 1] there. They learn riveting. They learn, safety wiring.
[Speaker 1] They learn fiberglass. They learn electronics.
[Speaker 0] Safety wiring was always fun to me.
[Speaker 1] Yeah. Well, believe it or not, funny you
[Speaker 1] bring that up. We've had many, many, many,
[Speaker 1] companies come in from, you know, Envoy to
[Speaker 1] SkyWest to Coletta. And the one thing they
[Speaker 1] say is make sure the kid can safety
[Speaker 1] wire. Because Now
[Speaker 0] do you make them do it manually, or
[Speaker 0] do you get the safety wire pliers?
[Speaker 1] They get both. They get to learn both.
[Speaker 1] But, you know, but every kid that leaves
[Speaker 1] here, because what we were told by the,
[Speaker 1] by the companies that are gonna hire them,
[Speaker 1] they know how to safety wire.
[Speaker 0] Yeah.
[Speaker 1] And that's one of their classes that they
[Speaker 1] get graded on, and, it's important.
[Speaker 0] That and soldering were my two, bugaboos.
[Speaker 1] Yeah. I'm not I'm not sure how much
[Speaker 1] work they get on all that, but they
[Speaker 1] get they learn a little bit about everything.
[Speaker 0] Sure.
[Speaker 1] Because all we're doing in in reality, Mike,
[Speaker 1] is we're giving them a license to learn.
[Speaker 0] Yep. And that's the way it is in
[Speaker 0] all aviation. You know, you get your pilot's
[Speaker 0] license. That's a license to learn because you
[Speaker 0] don't know everything. And I'm sure with the
[Speaker 0] mechanics, it's the same thing. And, you know,
[Speaker 0] and with the mechanic, you know, you got
[Speaker 0] hundreds of airframes out there that are different.
[Speaker 0] And engine you know, even a Cessna one
[Speaker 0] seventy two could have, you know, any number
[Speaker 0] of engines in the thing. So that's a
[Speaker 0] different skill. And avionics, all the avionics have
[Speaker 0] and you probably don't teach a lot of
[Speaker 0] avionics.
[Speaker 1] We don't. No. Yeah.
[Speaker 0] Because that's kind of a subspecialty.
[Speaker 1] Working on it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I can
[Speaker 1] tell you one of the best stories that
[Speaker 1] I have about starting the school is, when
[Speaker 1] we were getting our, all the materials and
[Speaker 1] all the parts so the kids could have
[Speaker 1] laboratories and work on things. One of the
[Speaker 1] things the FAA said was, you know, you
[Speaker 1] need a jet engine. Mhmm. Well, you just
[Speaker 1] don't go out Yeah.
[Speaker 0] You just don't go out engine
[Speaker 1] with a budget. Right? They even the ones
[Speaker 1] that are run out cost maybe thousands and
[Speaker 1] thousands and tens of twenties and thirties and
[Speaker 1] forties and maybe a hundred thousand dollars just
[Speaker 1] to get one of those. Right? So I
[Speaker 1] I call over to, Coletta Airlines, over in
[Speaker 1] Oscoda, Michigan, and I said, you know, I
[Speaker 1] need a favor. I mean, we're we're gonna
[Speaker 1] be an A and P school. They're I'm
[Speaker 1] sure our kids will wanna stay in Michigan,
[Speaker 1] and you're in Michigan. But the FAA said,
[Speaker 1] you know, you've gotta have, a jet engine.
[Speaker 1] And they said, well, let us think about
[Speaker 1] that a little bit. And I think it
[Speaker 1] was the next day they called up and
[Speaker 1] said, we got a seven twenty seven here
[Speaker 0] Mhmm.
[Speaker 1] That we're gonna donate to you. It has
[Speaker 1] four jet engines. Mhmm. Three on the airplane
[Speaker 1] and the APU. Yeah. And,
[Speaker 0] So you got the whole airplane?
[Speaker 1] We got the whole airplane, and we'll let
[Speaker 1] you even keep it here for free. Oh,
[Speaker 1] nice. And you can bring the students over
[Speaker 1] here and do whatever you want to it
[Speaker 1] whenever you want.
[Speaker 0] Nice.
[Speaker 1] And, the next thing you know, they, we
[Speaker 1] said, well, they said we gotta have a
[Speaker 1] a jet engine in our building here. They
[Speaker 1] said, well, we'll take the number one engine
[Speaker 1] off and you get a trailer and come
[Speaker 1] over here. We'll put it on the trailer
[Speaker 1] for you and you can bring it home.
[Speaker 0] Yeah. I've seen it sitting out there. Sitting
[Speaker 0] out there.
[Speaker 1] And now it's got all the numbers on
[Speaker 1] it. Experience. And we take them to Oscoda
[Speaker 1] once or twice a year, and we go
[Speaker 1] through the airplane. It's great fun.
[Speaker 0] And Oscoda, that's an old, Air Force Base.
[Speaker 0] Wertz Smith Air Force Base was, what it
[Speaker 0] was. It was a b fifty two base.
[Speaker 0] That's right. At least when they shut it
[Speaker 0] down. And now over there, there's lots of
[Speaker 0] maintenance activity going on. Coletta is there. What's
[Speaker 0] the other? Evergreen is at the other one.
[Speaker 0] Yep. That's there. Plus, there's a seven forty
[Speaker 0] seven engine shop over there.
[Speaker 1] Right. It's a It's a boneyard.
[Speaker 0] Yeah. And it's a boneyard. Lots of seven
[Speaker 0] forty sevens out there.
[Speaker 1] Seven forty sevens. We actually had a a
[Speaker 1] student. I call them kids because they're all
[Speaker 1] way younger than me. But, one of our
[Speaker 1] students wanted to be a deassembler. Mhmm. That's
[Speaker 1] a good
[Speaker 0] place to do.
[Speaker 1] And work and take airplanes apart.
[Speaker 0] Yep.
[Speaker 1] And, we all thought that was pretty pretty
[Speaker 1] funny and pretty unique. Well, in the beginning,
[Speaker 1] he thought, well, he really didn't have to
[Speaker 1] learn how to fix them.
[Speaker 0] Mhmm. And he doesn't know all of us.
[Speaker 1] Studying too hard. And so we call I
[Speaker 1] yeah. One of our instructors called Colette and
[Speaker 1] said, you know, what's it gonna take? They
[Speaker 1] said, well, first, he's gotta get his A
[Speaker 1] and P license. He's also gotta learn how
[Speaker 1] to fix them because you gotta know how
[Speaker 1] to fix them in order to know how
[Speaker 1] to take them apart.
[Speaker 0] Right. Because, yeah, if you take a part
[Speaker 0] off of an airplane that's gonna be reused,
[Speaker 0] you gotta know how it works because if
[Speaker 0] you take it off in the wrong way,
[Speaker 0] it might not be any good.
[Speaker 1] Exactly. You know? So the next thing you
[Speaker 1] know, the kid really really engaged in class
[Speaker 1] and really became, a learning, smart, young person.
[Speaker 0] Yeah.
[Speaker 1] And, he graduated and, yeah, I haven't heard
[Speaker 1] yet if he got the job, but, he
[Speaker 1] could have changed. You know, a year can
[Speaker 0] Yeah. You just never know. You know?
[Speaker 1] Forever. And I
[Speaker 0] wanna go work on Cessnas or
[Speaker 1] something. Exactly.
[Speaker 0] Yep. Yeah. Because, yeah, as an air force,
[Speaker 0] you know, we'd have to go pull parts
[Speaker 0] off of either racks or, you know, even
[Speaker 0] go to the boneyard in Tucson and pull
[Speaker 0] something, you know, and and, yeah, I don't
[Speaker 0] know what you were doing. Just, plain and
[Speaker 0] simple. Yeah. And, so so you've had, you
[Speaker 0] said twenty seven, now that have graduated Yep.
[Speaker 0] And pretty good, job placement. I'm sure.
[Speaker 1] Yeah. They all get jobs. Yeah. Yeah. It's
[Speaker 1] it's a hundred percent job placement. They're gonna
[Speaker 1] get two, three, four offers. We've got kids
[Speaker 1] in, Marquette, Michigan working for Envoy. We've got
[Speaker 1] kids, down at, oh, boy, we're in Chicago
[Speaker 1] at SkyWest. We've got kids, working down in
[Speaker 1] Battle Creek at one of the MROs. We've
[Speaker 1] got kids in Salt Lake City. They're all
[Speaker 1] over. We've got one student that, you know,
[Speaker 1] was, bound determined to work for, Delta, which
[Speaker 1] has an extremely difficult, you know, application process.
[Speaker 0] They're top notch. They're
[Speaker 1] very good. And, and she wants to work
[Speaker 1] in Tokyo. And so, you know, we've got,
[Speaker 1] job jobs available for kids where they can
[Speaker 1] work six months in Alaska and six months
[Speaker 1] in Honolulu.
[Speaker 0] Yeah.
[Speaker 1] You know, I mean, we've got jobs where
[Speaker 1] they can fly on airplanes.
[Speaker 0] It's hard to find a mechanic. You know,
[Speaker 0] if you own an airplane yourself and you,
[Speaker 0] you know, need something done, there's not a
[Speaker 0] ton of places you can take your airplane,
[Speaker 0] you know? Exactly. You know, there's a few
[Speaker 0] around, but, and, you know, and a lot
[Speaker 0] of those guys are getting older, so they're
[Speaker 0] gonna need new blood.
[Speaker 1] Yeah. All the, AMPs from, World War Two
[Speaker 1] are, you know, they're not working anymore. And
[Speaker 1] so now you got the next generation AMPs
[Speaker 1] from the military. And and, you know, now
[Speaker 1] we're having to produce our own. And there's
[Speaker 1] about, I don't know, one hundred and fifty
[Speaker 1] schools around the country is all, that are
[Speaker 1] doing this and, training kids. Some of the
[Speaker 1] programs most of the programs are still two
[Speaker 1] year programs. So that's what makes our program
[Speaker 1] unique. We're a one year program and, you
[Speaker 1] know
[Speaker 0] all done at one, you know, in one
[Speaker 0] fell swoop.
[Speaker 1] One fell swoop.
[Speaker 0] You know, Traverse City is a nice place
[Speaker 0] to be most of the year. I think
[Speaker 1] it's a good place to be even in
[Speaker 1] the winter.
[Speaker 0] Oh, yeah. For sure.
[Speaker 1] We, the kids that come here that don't
[Speaker 1] already live here, we have an apartment complex
[Speaker 1] that, that we put, we turn into a
[Speaker 1] dorm room and, you know, they've got a
[Speaker 1] pool. They've got an exercise room. I mean,
[Speaker 0] it's pretty challenging. Around here to find housing.
[Speaker 1] Right. Well, there's a lot of them going
[Speaker 1] up right now, so it's a little easier
[Speaker 1] than it used to be a couple years
[Speaker 1] ago.
[Speaker 0] For sure. Yeah. Apartments everywhere.
[Speaker 1] Yeah. Going up. We're very blessed.
[Speaker 0] But,
[Speaker 1] but we'll put four kids in a, you
[Speaker 1] know, two bedroom apartment to a bunk bed,
[Speaker 1] and it's unbelievably reasonable for the students. And,
[Speaker 1] and they're loving it. Yeah. Yeah. We even
[Speaker 1] provide maid service. We know that putting four
[Speaker 1] boys in a room without a little maid
[Speaker 1] service on occasion is probably not gonna be
[Speaker 1] a good experience.
[Speaker 0] I'm guessing the girls aren't much better. Probably
[Speaker 0] right.
[Speaker 1] Yeah.
[Speaker 0] Yeah. And, you know, so so yeah. You
[Speaker 0] guys are you start classes, what, twice a
[Speaker 0] year?
[Speaker 1] We used to, but now we're down to
[Speaker 1] once a year. We're looking at other options.
[Speaker 1] But most kids think that school starts, you
[Speaker 1] know, in August or September.
[Speaker 0] Right. Makes
[Speaker 1] sense. Spend their whole year. And to start
[Speaker 1] a a a new class in January takes
[Speaker 1] a lot of mental strength to to get
[Speaker 1] your brain around that.
[Speaker 0] Sure. Yeah. So the Air Force was funny.
[Speaker 0] They just started it whenever they needed to.
[Speaker 1] Yeah. Well, that's because they can control you
[Speaker 1] a lot better.
[Speaker 0] Oh, yeah. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing nothing
[Speaker 0] like being in a cornfield in Illinois marching
[Speaker 0] to to class. Exactly.
[Speaker 1] Yeah. We don't do that. Right?
[Speaker 0] So a lot of other things you got
[Speaker 0] going on here in this building. I know,
[Speaker 0] you allow, the EAA, a local group to
[Speaker 0] use the building somewhat and, also civil air
[Speaker 0] patrol.
[Speaker 1] Right. When I bought the building, I wanted
[Speaker 1] this to be the center of aviation for
[Speaker 1] our airport. Because once, you know, nine eleven
[Speaker 1] happened, you know, you just can't go out
[Speaker 1] and walk up to an airplane and say
[Speaker 1] hi to the pilot and and sit in
[Speaker 1] the side of the runway and watch airplanes
[Speaker 1] take off. You know, they put up fences.
[Speaker 1] They gave you badges. You know, it made
[Speaker 1] it very difficult for people
[Speaker 0] to congregate. Can't hang out at the airport
[Speaker 0] here. No. Now, you know, know, some other
[Speaker 0] airports you can, but
[Speaker 1] Yeah.
[Speaker 0] You know, like Antrim, I I you know,
[Speaker 0] I've been up there a few times. You
[Speaker 0] can go hang out in the in the
[Speaker 0] building there, and there's always people around and
[Speaker 0] it's kinda fun. But, yeah, this is kinda
[Speaker 0] what this is becoming here. You know, I've
[Speaker 0] I've joked with people that I I've gotta
[Speaker 0] go to coffee klatch, you know? Yeah. And
[Speaker 0] we come over here Saturday mornings and drink
[Speaker 0] coffee, eat donuts, and, you know, just shoot
[Speaker 0] the ball.
[Speaker 1] Just like you used to thirty years ago
[Speaker 1] when you had the old building, for general
[Speaker 1] aviation. Right?
[Speaker 0] Yeah. Yeah.
[Speaker 1] Yeah. So that's one of the things that,
[Speaker 1] my partner understood in the air when we
[Speaker 1] bought this building is that we were gonna
[Speaker 1] give, the EAA and the CAP, free office,
[Speaker 1] and, and rooms to, any events on Mondays
[Speaker 1] and Thursday nights and other days of the
[Speaker 1] week, Saturdays when we're not in school. Yeah.
[Speaker 1] And, it works great.
[Speaker 0] And we got quite the SIM room here
[Speaker 0] now too. What is there? Four or five,
[Speaker 0] six of them in that room?
[Speaker 1] Six SIMs and even one moving SIM. Yeah.
[Speaker 1] And that's one of the things we do
[Speaker 1] at our school too is we teach all
[Speaker 1] the prospective AMP students, you know, how to
[Speaker 1] fly an airplane on a SIM. Yeah. So
[Speaker 1] they have a general idea.
[Speaker 0] Yeah. It's always a good thing. You know,
[Speaker 0] a lot of the AMPs I know, also
[Speaker 0] are pilots. So that's that's a good thing,
[Speaker 0] but not all of them. Oh. You know?
[Speaker 0] And some of them, you know, I don't
[Speaker 0] like flying, but I like airplanes. Yeah.
[Speaker 1] Yeah. Being on, you know, around airplanes is
[Speaker 1] pretty sexy. Right?
[Speaker 0] Yeah. You know?
[Speaker 1] And, I mean, airplanes are really cool. And,
[Speaker 1] to know how to fix them or fly
[Speaker 1] them is, you know, not not for everybody.
[Speaker 1] And, it's pretty cool if you're one of
[Speaker 1] those people that are.
[Speaker 0] Yeah. It's, it's definitely, it's a muscle memory
[Speaker 0] thing because, you know, it's that was my
[Speaker 0] trouble in training is, you know, just gaining
[Speaker 0] the muscle memory. Once once you do that
[Speaker 0] though, you can jump into a different airplane
[Speaker 0] and it's everything's similar.
[Speaker 1] Yeah.
[Speaker 0] You know?
[Speaker 1] I'm a pilot also. I'm I have no
[Speaker 1] tools. Why I picked, the mechanic school, the
[Speaker 1] AMP school, I have no clue. All I
[Speaker 1] know is they made it my life so
[Speaker 1] much better keeping my airplanes flyable and safe
[Speaker 1] with my family that I always appreciated and
[Speaker 1] admired them. Right. And, that's why I thought,
[Speaker 1] wow, this would be great because I don't
[Speaker 1] know a thing about it, but wouldn't it
[Speaker 1] be cool to have more around?
[Speaker 0] Yeah. For sure. And I've seen your airplane
[Speaker 0] in the hangar here getting this done on
[Speaker 0] it, and that's kind of a handy bonus.
[Speaker 1] Yeah. So yeah. So the students can't work
[Speaker 1] on an airplane that's flyable Mhmm. But they
[Speaker 1] can observe work.
[Speaker 0] Sure.
[Speaker 1] So I'll make it so that the A
[Speaker 1] and P who has, inspector's license, IA, he
[Speaker 1] can do my annual in the hangar, and
[Speaker 1] the students can watch it.
[Speaker 0] Yep.
[Speaker 1] And, invaluable. Right? And, you know, they can
[Speaker 1] watch all the plates get taken off and
[Speaker 1] do a lot of things and, stick their
[Speaker 0] head in. They do have a apprentice program
[Speaker 0] of some sort, don't they?
[Speaker 1] They do. It's like a three year program
[Speaker 1] Yeah. Where you can work at a at
[Speaker 1] an eight at,
[Speaker 0] In a shop.
[Speaker 1] In a shop somewhere. And, but holy mackerel,
[Speaker 1] it's not great wages. And, three years is
[Speaker 1] a long time in a life when you
[Speaker 1] can come to a school and in one
[Speaker 1] year
[Speaker 0] You're getting knocked out.
[Speaker 1] Get it knocked out and be making really
[Speaker 1] good wages. Our kids are making, you know,
[Speaker 1] upper twenties and into the thirties really rapidly.
[Speaker 1] And, most of them will be making in
[Speaker 1] five years into the forties.
[Speaker 0] Mhmm.
[Speaker 1] Forty dollar an hour. It's it's a, you
[Speaker 1] know, life changing event and making enough money
[Speaker 1] to to have a good middle class living.
[Speaker 0] The only reason I never went for the
[Speaker 0] AMP was the the length of the time
[Speaker 0] you had to go to school, you know,
[Speaker 0] and what we did in the Air Force
[Speaker 0] didn't count.
[Speaker 1] Right.
[Speaker 0] You know, so that was, you know, if
[Speaker 0] if I could have just got out and
[Speaker 0] did, I'd probably be doing that right now.
[Speaker 1] Sure. But one of the things we're starting
[Speaker 1] here soon, not exactly sure when, is we're
[Speaker 1] gonna do a special program for the veterans
[Speaker 1] Mhmm. That get out of the service. And
[Speaker 1] for some reason, the FAA doesn't acknowledge that
[Speaker 1] they probably are AMPs in the service. But
[Speaker 1] there's a two week program that we could
[Speaker 1] do for him that would teach him how
[Speaker 1] to pass the FAA test. And, and we're
[Speaker 1] gonna do that, as soon as we can.
[Speaker 0] That's changed since I got I got out
[Speaker 0] thirty years ago. So Yeah. I have no
[Speaker 0] idea how that works now.
[Speaker 1] I have no idea how it works either,
[Speaker 1] but all I know is that, two of
[Speaker 1] our three instructors right now are retired military,
[Speaker 1] and they wanna help their, you know, their
[Speaker 1] fellow military friends get their license. And, so
[Speaker 1] we're gonna start one of those programs soon.
[Speaker 0] That'd be great. You know, especially, you know,
[Speaker 0] we've got the Coast Guard base here, and
[Speaker 0] there's a lot of guys over there that
[Speaker 0] wanna come back here when they retire. Yep.
[Speaker 0] Maybe that'd be perfect for them.
[Speaker 1] Yeah. We have one Coast Guard retiree. We
[Speaker 1] have one Air Force retiree. We have, one
[Speaker 1] instructor that, she worked for two major airlines
[Speaker 1] in her life and then a major airline
[Speaker 1] manufacturer. And, so we've got lots of different
[Speaker 1] experiences here.
[Speaker 0] Yeah. And they're all here in little Traverse
[Speaker 0] City. Yeah. Little Traverse City.
[Speaker 1] Yeah. And that's what makes our school special
[Speaker 1] too, is that we're a smaller school. There
[Speaker 1] are lots of really big schools out there,
[Speaker 1] but, you know, our main goal is everyone
[Speaker 1] becomes an A and P. It's not just
[Speaker 1] getting through the school. You're gonna get out
[Speaker 1] and, you know, get your licenses. That's really
[Speaker 1] important to us. We don't give up on
[Speaker 1] you if you don't get it done exactly
[Speaker 1] by the last day of school. You can
[Speaker 1] come back as often as you need to
[Speaker 1] practice, to study, to go over what maybe
[Speaker 1] isn't perfectly clear to you. We've always got
[Speaker 1] instructors available for you on, certain nights of
[Speaker 1] the week and on weekends. And, that's really
[Speaker 1] important to us. Right. Our goal is to
[Speaker 1] have one hundred percent of the kids graduate
[Speaker 1] from our school and become MPs.
[Speaker 0] Yeah. Yeah. Because a lot of, you know,
[Speaker 0] like nursing school, for instance, they don't care
[Speaker 0] whether you ever, get the license. They just
[Speaker 0] want you to get through the school.
[Speaker 1] Yeah. Yeah. That's not us. Yeah. We are
[Speaker 1] doing everything humanly possible to we even make
[Speaker 1] it so that we pay included in your
[Speaker 1] tuition is the, fee to take the tests.
[Speaker 0] Oh, nice.
[Speaker 1] And that's thousands of dollars that a lot
[Speaker 1] of these kids don't have, but that's included.
[Speaker 1] We even pay for tools.
[Speaker 0] That's similar to a check ride with a
[Speaker 0] DPE. You know, you have to pay them
[Speaker 0] to
[Speaker 1] Yeah. What's a check ride with a DPE
[Speaker 1] cost nowadays?
[Speaker 0] I paid eight hundred.
[Speaker 1] Thank you. Yeah. So a lot of these
[Speaker 1] students don't have eight hundred dollars, so we
[Speaker 1] include it in their tuition. And, so that
[Speaker 1] when they're ready to do it, they come
[Speaker 1] to us, tell them they're ready. We write
[Speaker 1] them a check. It's simple as that. Nice.
[Speaker 1] They can go take the test.
[Speaker 0] Yeah. And then you get that all done.
[Speaker 0] They got the the nice piece of plastic
[Speaker 0] or paper. I think it's the same as
[Speaker 0] a pilot's license, isn't it? Yeah. It's a
[Speaker 0] plastic. Yeah.
[Speaker 1] It's it's pretty darn special. Yeah. And, and,
[Speaker 1] yeah, it's really important that we're a little
[Speaker 1] unique that way and that we really, really,
[Speaker 1] really, really push hard to make sure everyone,
[Speaker 0] you know, if you're
[Speaker 1] gonna their goal.
[Speaker 0] Spend all that time doing it. And even
[Speaker 0] though it's only a year, you wanna make
[Speaker 0] sure it finishes. You know? And that's the
[Speaker 0] thing. You know? And it I mean, you
[Speaker 0] you probably don't have a lot of people
[Speaker 0] dropping out of it, do you?
[Speaker 1] We don't.
[Speaker 0] Yeah. I was gonna say
[Speaker 1] Dropout rate is virtually zero. Yeah. We had
[Speaker 1] one young man who dropped out. We found
[Speaker 1] out that, you know, he had some prior
[Speaker 1] challenges with the law. Mhmm. And we knew
[Speaker 1] that because of that, most employers wouldn't hire
[Speaker 1] him.
[Speaker 0] Right.
[Speaker 1] And so we helped him to realize that
[Speaker 1] maybe it wasn't in his best interest. Yeah.
[Speaker 1] And so, you know, we're not doing this
[Speaker 1] just to, you know, get their money to,
[Speaker 1] you know, for tuition. If we don't think
[Speaker 1] they're gonna become AMPs, we're gonna help them
[Speaker 1] to find something else that they'll be better
[Speaker 1] at.
[Speaker 0] Mhmm.
[Speaker 1] Right?
[Speaker 0] Sure. And, you know, that's that's the thing.
[Speaker 0] It's more of a you're you know, obviously,
[Speaker 0] it's a for profit thing.
[Speaker 1] Oh, we're actually a nonprofit.
[Speaker 0] Oh, you are a nonprofit. Okay. Then that's
[Speaker 0] even better.
[Speaker 1] Yeah. That's why we were able to get
[Speaker 1] that seven twenty seven donated to us.
[Speaker 0] Oh, very good.
[Speaker 1] Took a tax write off.
[Speaker 0] Oh, I'm sure they did. What what is
[Speaker 0] the they did. I wonder what a seven
[Speaker 0] twenty seven would go for these days. I
[Speaker 0] don't think any of them are flying anymore,
[Speaker 0] are they?
[Speaker 1] I don't think so. Yeah.
[Speaker 0] Anyway, so, yeah, it's a great thing you
[Speaker 0] guys are doing here. And, like I said
[Speaker 0] and myself, I appreciate the, EAA, connection and
[Speaker 0] just the chance to hang out with people.
[Speaker 0] You know, I've retired military, retired air for
[Speaker 0] or airline pilots that come in here for
[Speaker 0] coffee and
[Speaker 1] We got students and astronauts that come here.
[Speaker 0] Yeah. Exactly.
[Speaker 1] We've got every single type of aviation you
[Speaker 1] can imagine. Today, there are, five or six
[Speaker 1] kids, from the, Legacy Aviation AMP school that
[Speaker 1] are doing virtual reality things around here.
[Speaker 0] And, you
[Speaker 1] know, I mean, there's just so fun.
[Speaker 0] Something going on all the time.
[Speaker 1] All all day Saturday. And if you come
[Speaker 1] on at most nights, there's something happening
[Speaker 0] Nice.
[Speaker 1] You know, between the civil air patrol, the
[Speaker 1] EAA, the students getting extra help. It's crazy
[Speaker 1] busy building.
[Speaker 0] Yeah. Well, very good. I guess we'll call
[Speaker 0] this an interview, and, thanks for being on.
[Speaker 0] We've been talking about this, what, for a
[Speaker 0] year? Yeah. Finally just set a date, said
[Speaker 0] we're gonna do this. Damn it.
[Speaker 1] Yep. And we got her done. Thank you.
[Speaker 1] Thank you for letting me share what a
[Speaker 1] cool program we have. If you're, looking to,
[Speaker 1] find us on the Internet, we are under
[Speaker 1] legacy aviation dot org.
[Speaker 0] Okay. And I will also have links and
[Speaker 0] whatnot in the show notes. So, just go
[Speaker 0] to whichever podcast you're listening to because I'm
[Speaker 0] gonna put this out on two, and, there'll