Congratulations are due to College of the Albemarle and Currituck County on their joint venture to build a center for aviation technical training in Maple. Success of the project will help meet the growing employment needs of the region while creating a resource of a skilled workforce for the aviation industry.

Officials announced April 15 that the college’s long-hoped-for airframe and power plant program will be housed in a new 25,000- to 30,000-square-foot regional aviation and technical training center located at Currituck County Regional Airport in Maple. The center, estimated to cost from $3 million to $5 million, is scheduled to be operational within two years.

COA has been taking steps toward the A&P project for several years in coordination with the development of the Elizabeth City Aviation Research Development Commerce Park. The initial plan was to locate the program at the park in a joint facility with Elizabeth City State University. Unfortunately, state and local budget cutbacks drew a halt on that plan.

The resulting delay, however, which was a negative for COA, local jobs and the aviation industry, evolved into an opportunity for Currituck County. Officials there have also been in search of ways to develop the commercial/industrial capacities of the Maple airport. Among their objectives have been an obvious desire to find development compatible with aviation. And what could be more compatible than an education facility that trains students on how to build and maintain aircraft.

Hence, Currituck officials seized the moment, stepping forward and offering to become COA’s partner in the program. And, the partnership should be a very productive one from the beginning.

First,construction and operations will create jobs. Then, the specialized training will be a magnet for local residents looking for careers in the aviation industry where quality, high-paying technical jobs will be available far into the future.

Leading the way locally in aviation-related job producers are DRS Technologies, the main tenant at the Elizabeth City air park; Telephonics, TCOM with its high-tech airships, and the Coast Guard base. In particular, DRS has contracts to overhaul the Coast Guard’s fixed-wing aircraft.

There are likely to be other opportunities, too. Elizabeth City-Pasquotank Economic Development Director Wayne Harris, who has been a firm believer in tapping into the region’s aviation growth, said that much of the future business that comes to the aviation park will be from commercial operators, the Department of Defense and from foreign military operators.

“The rewards can be substantial,” COA President Kandi Deitemeyer said of the growing need for skilled workers in the aviation industry. Deitemeyer, who recently celebrated her first year at COA, has been a persistent advocate of the A&P program. Much to her credit, Deitemeyer, as well as members of the COA board, weren’t willing to roll over and watch as the vision of a project so valuable to the region went unrealized. Hence, offered the timely and mutually-beneficial engagement from neighbors in Currituck, they took the bold steps necessary to make it happen.

As it turned out, Currituck County’s economic director Peter Bishop and other county officials already had been focused on sustainable economic enterprises as part of airport development. The fit with COA could not have been better.

Aside from making winners of COA, Currituck County and the area’s aviation industry, there’s an additional benefit from this joint venture. The regional impact of merging interests across county lines can be a powerful strategy for the entire Albemarle area. These linkages — economic, educational, political, etc. — produce a formidable regional identity and developmental focus.

Saying as much was Paul O’Neal, who has a good vantage point as a member of the Currituck County Commissioner and the COA Board of Trustees. O’Neal suggested that basing the new training center in Currituck will further establish a regional identity independent from traditional stereotypes.

“Northeastern North Carolina,” O’Neal said. “We are not a subsidiary of Virginia.”

The point being that area counties and institutions can excel regionally when they think and act regionally. This venture is evidence of that.