Join us as we explore an extraordinary high school program that’s preparing students for careers in aviation. Aaron and Rachael sit down with Eric Greenberger, the creator and lead instructor of the Wallenpaupack Aeronautical Science & Aviation program, as well as senior Josh Griffiths, a student pilot in the program. Learn how this one-of-a-kind program is giving students hands-on experience in professional piloting, air traffic control, and aircraft maintenance while helping them earn certifications and launch their careers before they even graduate.
Join us as we explore an extraordinary high school program that’s preparing students for careers in aviation. Aaron and Rachael sit down with Eric Greenberger, the creator and lead instructor of the Wallenpaupack Aeronautical Science & Aviation program, as well as senior Josh Griffiths, a student pilot in the program. Learn how this one-of-a-kind program is giving students hands-on experience in professional piloting, air traffic control, and aircraft maintenance while helping them earn certifications and launch their careers before they even graduate.
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Voiceover:
Welcome to Duty Free Lunch, the official podcast of the Pennsylvania State Education Association. Join us as we unpack the issues that matter most to you. From cutting-edge classroom strategies to thought-provoking policy discussions. If it impacts PSEA members, it's on the menu.
Aaron Chapin:
Hello and welcome to Duty Free Lunch. I'm PSEA President Aaron Chapin. Joining me today. It's PSEA's Treasurer Rachael West. Hey there, Rachael.
Rachael West:
Hey Aaron. How you doing?
Aaron Chapin:
I'm doing a wonderful, it's another great day here in Harrisburg. How's it going for you?
Rachael West:
Great.
Aaron Chapin:
That's right. How's school going right now for your kids?
Rachael West:
Well, we are happily handling some snow days as they came back. But things are going pretty well. They're pretty happy at school right now.
Aaron Chapin:
What do you got, you got a...
Rachael West:
I have a 10th grader and a seventh grader.
Aaron Chapin:
Do they like school?
Rachael West:
My son really likes math and science and he could probably live without most of the other subjects. And my daughter is very much an ELA student and could live without all the other subjects.
Aaron Chapin:
Gotcha. I'm guessing they have a lot of interest though within school.
Rachael West:
Yeah, they do a lot of, my daughter daughter's very heavily involved in the theater program and my son did Envirothon because he's a science guy.
Aaron Chapin:
Oh. My daughter, she wasn't much into anything else other than study, study, study. And we recognize we have some students out in our schools that, we're looking for things to attract them to keep coming to school and keep their interest, as it is with your own children.
Rachael West:
Yeah, sometimes you have to make sure they have that. That theater is probably a big reason my daughter likes high school a lot more than she did middle school. So I think when kids get to those higher grades, they get a chance to pick more classes on their own and it makes them a little more interested in heading to school every day.
Aaron Chapin:
Well, I know as an elementary teacher I had those kinds of students. I know as a secondary teacher you had those kinds of students. They were just looking for something that piqued their interest. And that leads us to today's episode. We're going to be talking about a really unique program up in the northeastern region at Wallenpaupack High School that is preparing students for a career in aviation. That's right, everybody. Aviation. We're going to be talking today with Eric Greenberger. He is the creator and leader of the Wallenpaupack Aeronautical Science and Aviation program, which is the only program of its kind in the country. So with decades of experience in the aviation industry, Eric has built an innovative curriculum that provides high school students with hands-on experience in professional piloting, air traffic control, aviation management, and maintenance. Can't wait to hear about this. His program opens doors for students to pursue these rewarding careers in aviation right out of high school. So welcome to you Eric. How you doing?
Eric Greenberger:
Doing great, Aaron. So glad to be here. And hi Rachael. How are you today?
Rachael West:
Good, thanks. It's nice to see you.
Aaron Chapin:
And also joining Eric is Josh Griffiths. He's a senior at Wallenpaupack High School and he's the student president of the aviation program. Josh is planning a career as an airline pilot. He's also already been accepted. What were you doing at your senior year?
Rachael West:
Not off flying planes or practicing doing so.
Aaron Chapin:
No, he's already been accepted to several aviation-focused universities. Oh my goodness. In addition to being a student pilot, Josh is a key member of this program's simulator, maintenance, and development teams. This guy's really busy. Welcome to you, Josh.
Josh Griffiths:
Thank you for having me here.
Aaron Chapin:
You got it. Well, it's great to have you both here. I saw this when we were talking. This was in the Voice magazine a couple of years ago. I was excited not just because it was from the Northeastern region where I come from, but because this is so innovative. So let's just get right into these questions. And Eric, I want to ask you, what inspired you to start this aviation program at Wallenpaupack High School? And how did you manage to build this from scratch with so few resources?
Eric Greenberger:
Great question, Aaron. So I, like so many of these students here, when I was young, I had a big interest in aviation. And so I started taking some flying lessons at my local airport, fell in love with it, and I decided I was going to pursue a track to get me to the airline. When I was about 18, 19, 20, somewhere in there, I was tied into the IT world and I got some good jobs in the IT world, steered me away from aviation. Fast-forward about 20 years, here I am at Wallenpaupack and now through some wonderful resources and some amazing people outside of school, I'm able to do some really great things with these kids and it's come full circle. So I'm living vicariously through these kids.
Aaron Chapin:
How about it?
Eric Greenberger:
Which is great.
Rachael West:
That's amazing. So Josh, you're obviously at the start of this. So I understand that you come from an aviation family. I'm making an assumption that that may have been what drew you to this program and helped shape your aspiration to become an airline pilot. But could you tell us a little bit more about what got you here?
Josh Griffiths:
Yeah, so that assumption is correct. My dad, he's a pilot. He now flies for a major carrier, American Airlines. But before this job, he was a corporate pilot. He was an aircraft manager. He owned a business that managed private aircraft. So I was always at the airport, around planes, hitching rides with him in private jet. But fast-forward to high school, my sophomore year my mom saw a post for Facebook of the aviation club and said I should join. And I was super thrilled that there was something at my school that pertained to me. So I enrolled in the class, that ran my sophomore year, the first class and joined the club soon after and now here I am.
Aaron Chapin:
Wow. That is amazing. That just blows my mind. So Eric, this program, obviously it's hands-on approach is super unique. Again, nothing like this in the country. And so working on the aircraft to building simulators, can you share some memorable, maybe a memorable story that really illustrates some of the resourcefulness of this program's creation?
Eric Greenberger:
Yeah, absolutely. Just like you said, everything about this program is hands-on. And one of the things that I appreciate most about this program right now is that the kids have taken ownership. We've got Josh here. Josh is officially the president of our program, the student president. And I guess you can be the first one to tell them, is this program hands-on or what?
Josh Griffiths:
Oh yeah, absolutely. We do things that, nothing's out of a textbook or on paper. It's all right in front of you and you're just working on it in real life.
Eric Greenberger:
We've got curriculum here, just like any other coursework. However, our curriculum is designed by me as well as professionals in the aviation industry. So we don't use textbooks. What we do use is real-life aviation. And in order to make this happen, it has to be hands-on. So we've got a million and one stories so far with this program, but I'll certainly share a couple of them. One story that comes to mind is the acquisition of our Mooney. So going into this program and its inception and development, I knew that we had to have aircraft. If you're going to teach kids about aviation and airplanes, you've got to have airplanes. It's no different than a science class. If you're teach kids about chemistry, you got to have a chemistry set. So going into this, we had to get really creative and get some good folks on board and pretty much convinced them to give us their airplane.
So that was challenge number one. Challenge number two was getting those airplanes from the airport to our high school campus. And you might be wondering why would we need them at the campus? It's for our maintenance component. So kids learning how to work on aircraft, they need an aircraft to work on. So anyhow, one of those airplanes was a Mooney, which is a high-performance complex aircraft, and essentially it's built like a race car.
So in order to take this thing apart, it's a bear to take it apart, it's a lot of time, it's a lot of labor, and plus it's at an airport that's 30 something miles away. So here again, we had to think outside the box. We had to get creative. We had to identify resources that we had available to us. And one of those resources was a very friendly, heavy-lift aviation business down in Gettysburg. So we got really creative and they flew a Huey helicopter all the way up to Mount Pocono airport. And we actually lifted that airplane and we carried it 28 miles through the air to the high school campus, landed it in the high school parking lot, and we had to do this on Labor Day.
Rachael West:
Oh my gosh.
Eric Greenberger:
There were a lot of challenges involved with it. I was having a blast with it the whole way through. We had kids involved. A couple students, and I actually flew over to Mount Pocono to set up some planning and stuff and it was great. It was quite the challenge, but we had a lot of really great people involved. We had to get the state police involved because, of course, we had to close down every single road that we flew over, including Interstate 84 on Labor Day.
Rachael West:
Oh, I was wondering about, you said Labor Day and I'm like in the Poconos, Labor Day weekend, you are doing this. Okay, cool.
Eric Greenberger:
Yeah, so a reminder, this is not only Labor Day in the Poconos, this is Labor Day at Lake Wallenpaupack.
Aaron Chapin:
Yeah, vacation.
Eric Greenberger:
Everybody's out on the lake. And I'll tell you what, the social media was blowing up left and right afterwards.
Rachael West:
Everybody's seeing this helicopter flying a plane?
Eric Greenberger:
We heard all sorts of crazy stories. We heard an airplane just crashed in the lake. A helicopter was picking an airplane up from the lake. The stories just went on and on. But sometimes they say any publicity is good publicity. And for us, that actually worked out great because we got quite a few phone calls, I got quite a few emails, and those actually turned into some good resources and good leads going forward because everybody really wanted to get on board and help out.
Aaron Chapin:
Yeah.
Rachael West:
That's amazing.
Eric Greenberger:
Like I say, that's one of many, many stories. I could go on and on here. Josh and some of the other kids and I, and we travel all over. We go to New York City airport. We've been to JFK Airport. We picked up a jet engine display from JetBlue and towed it back home to the Poconos behind the school van.
Rachael West:
Nice.
Eric Greenberger:
Pulled it across on the Cross-Bronx Expressway. Here we are in a school van and a giant jet engine behind us. It just goes on and on. Do you have any memories?
Rachael West:
It's like you're scooping me. I was going to ask Josh, what's your most memorable experience in this and/or what's been your toughest challenge trying to do this program?
Josh Griffiths:
So my most memorable experience, well one of them is definitely towing an aircraft engine across the Cross-Bronx Expressway in New York behind a school van. That was pretty crazy. That was one of the first field trips I was on. Another one would be, we got into the air traffic control tower at JFK, which is top security clearance. Nobody can get in there. We got up there because one of our students', aunt is a controller there. So we had connections and that was an unbelievable experience.
Rachael West:
I'll bet.
Josh Griffiths:
Our toughest challenge to date is probably this 737 simulator behind us. It's definitely the biggest project we've taken on so far, but it's extremely rewarding.
Aaron Chapin:
For those of you, obviously you're listening, right behind them, Josh and Eric, it looks like they're in the cockpit of an airplane. And it's another simulator that they use at these airports. It's pretty cool.
Rachael West:
It's amazing. The students are earning pilot certificates and partnering with JetBlue. Can you talk a little bit about that and maybe some of the other outcomes from the program that have made you most proud?
Eric Greenberger:
Yeah, absolutely. So our program has four different pathways to it. There's a professional pilot pathway, there's an air traffic control pathway, there's an aviation maintenance component, and there's an aviation management component as well. So just as you mentioned, we do have students that are pursuing and getting their pilot licenses. As a matter of fact, I just had one reach out to me now. He graduated last year and he's now getting his commercial pilot certificate. So he's headed towards a job, which is something really great.
But yeah, we've got quite a few kids here that are getting their pilot licenses. We're lucky to work with some really great local flight schools. So we take care of all the preparation here in the classroom. And we also have some really amazing high-end simulators here that our kids get to use. And once they're done here, we send them off to our local airport where they get up in the air with a certified flight instructor and start building time towards their private pilot certificates. We've had quite a few kids now come through our program that have moved on to pursue other certifications so that they can get jobs in the industry. We had a kid stop in the other day, he made his way down to Texas and he ended up getting a full-ride scholarship to a school down there. But he's just in there for about a year and a half and he's done. He's already getting offers from the airline.
Aaron Chapin:
Wow, great opportunities.
Eric Greenberger:
Yeah, but we've got kids getting their pilot certificates. We have kids getting their airframe and power plant certifications, and we also have kids going for air traffic control as well.
Aaron Chapin:
That's amazing. And so Eric, we've got thousands of listeners. We can say that officially now.
Rachael West:
Excellent.
Aaron Chapin:
And so if we've got some of our colleagues listening to this across the state and people listening across the country, so let's just say they want to start something like this. Do you have any advice to give them or policymakers about the importance of including programs like this career and tech ed program that you've got going on? What kind of advice would you give?
Eric Greenberger:
Yeah, absolutely. Something that we all need to consider is supply and demand. And that's something that's very important to us in public education. And as we prepare young people for careers and for their futures, we can't lose sight of that. And essentially where I'm going with it is that, right now, and also forecast for as far out as we can see, the aviation industry is very shorthanded. The supply is just not there. However, the demand continues to increase. And so what that means for us in Pennsylvania public education is that there's an opportunity here. There's an absolute window of opportunity that's very clear and very well-defined for us to create pathways to successful lucrative careers for these young folks. A word of advice, go for it. If you can pursue this and make it happen, something with aviation, go for it. Another word of advice that I would say, and Josh has heard me say this, your network is your network.
The people that you keep close to are either going to make you or break you. So for me, in the development of this program, it's all about networking. It's really no different than any other business in any other program. But network, network, network. And Josh here can absolutely attest to this. And that's one of the things that our kids are learning in addition to aviation. They're learning the business side. They're learning how to network. They're learning how to communicate. They're learning how to reach out and make stuff happen. We started this program officially with $3. And with the $3, we ended up getting several airplanes, a lot of tools, and a really good head start. In addition to that, look around, right?
We've got airplanes, we've got simulators. The opportunities are through the roof. Again, just to circle back there, absolutely go for it. The window of opportunity is there. We can do some amazing things for these kids. This program has proven itself in three years. We have kids that are all over the country and they already have amazing jobs. A couple of quick facts about the aviation industry. None of the jobs that we're preparing our kids for require college. So no college debt. If they want go to college, you can go to college, that's fine. But for a lot of these kids, college is not really a financial option. None of these jobs do require college, and that's something to consider. Yeah, that and again, your network is your network.
Aaron Chapin:
Yeah. So Josh, I want to ask you though, so what kind of advice would you give to students that maybe are interested in aviation? What advice could you give them about the path and taking advantage of programs like this one?
Josh Griffiths:
So for students that want to pursue this career, I would say if you're fortunate enough to have a program like this at your school, absolutely enroll, it's a major head start. But if not, I would say go to your local airport, schedule an intro flight, get in the air, get flight time, and just market yourself towards those possible employers, like the airlines or corporate employers.
Aaron Chapin:
All right.
Rachael West:
So obviously you said you started with $3 and you've gotten to all of this equipment that you have around you and the airplanes and things. Eric, what's a dream milestone or project you'd love to see this program to have in the next couple of years?
Eric Greenberger:
Great question. We talk about dreams in here all the time. Something that we say about these dreams is that we're pretty good at making these good dreams come true. We're very lucky to have some really good people on board and some very talented people as well. So for me, I think on a personal note, I would absolutely love to see additional staff. I'm pretty much a one-man show here, so if there's anything aviation related, I'm your guy. So I run the show with the hands-on part. I take care of all the coursework and more. So additional staff is number one on my list. If we could get another aviation staff member in here, that would really clear the pathway for us to open up more coursework, more opportunities, and just more great stuff for these kids. We're also very tight on space. Our district is working very hard to create a new CTE facility so that we'll have more space.
And with that, we should be able to get some more space as well. We have absolutely outgrown our classroom and we are now opening up a second classroom, so we'll be two classrooms full now going into the fall. Every single aviation class we have is full. We are building an airplane in the classroom that Josh and I are in right now. We also have a full simulator lab, so we're out of space. So my wish list includes additional staff, additional space, and then we have plans to build out an air traffic control simulator. So that's on my list as well. Hopefully, we'll have that going soon. I think the ultimate absolute dream come true would be an airworthy aircraft up at the airport where we can get these kids up to the airport during the school day and get them flying.
Rachael West:
That's amazing.
Aaron Chapin:
I'd like an airplane here for PSEA.
Rachael West:
Right, they just fly us to...
Aaron Chapin:
I could get to the Western region like that.
Rachael West:
Right?
Aaron Chapin:
It would be awesome.
Eric Greenberger:
We can make that happen for you, Aaron.
Aaron Chapin:
Oh my gosh. You'd be my favorite district.
Eric Greenberger:
I've got your pilot right here.
Aaron Chapin:
Oh my gosh. Guess what, Rachael?
Rachael West:
What?
Aaron Chapin:
It's pop quiz time.
Rachael West:
Yes.
Aaron Chapin:
All right, Rachael, hit it.
Rachael West:
All right. So pop quiz just means I'm going to ask each of you a question and it's just a quick answer as quickly as you can off the top of your head. So I'll start with Eric. Since hindsight is always 20/20, what's one thing you would do differently if you were to launch this program and have to start today?
Eric Greenberger:
Great question. You know what? I'm not going to change anything that I've done. The program works. Kids are happy, kids are employed, community loves it, school loves it. Everyone's on board. Round two, I'm going the same.
Rachael West:
Awesome. That's great.
Aaron Chapin:
Way to go, Eric.
Rachael West:
All right, Josh, one for you. Do you still feel like you made the right decision to pursue a career as an airline pilot? And is there anything you would do differently if you were to go back to maybe the start of high school?
Josh Griffiths:
Yeah, I absolutely made the right decision. I'm absolutely in love with it. I'm super excited for my eventual career in the airline. And if I had to start from scratch today, I would say to start flight training sooner. I only recently started training at my local airport, but if I could go back, I would start training sooner.
Rachael West:
Awesome.
Aaron Chapin:
This is what public education is all about. This is a story that I've loved since it's been in the Voice. I can't get enough of it. And I hope everybody out there enjoyed hearing this as much as I did, and I can't wait to see where this program goes, Rachael.
Rachael West:
I know. Now I want to take a field trip to Wallenpaupack.
Aaron Chapin:
I'm thinking we should head up sometime.
Rachael West:
I think so.
Aaron Chapin:
We might know the local president.
Rachael West:
Might be able to get in there.
Aaron Chapin:
Might be able to pull some strings. Unfortunately, we are all out of time. And our guests today have been Eric Greenberger and Josh Griffiths. Gentlemen, thank you very much for joining us today.
Eric Greenberger:
Thank you Aaron, and thank you Rachael.
Aaron Chapin:
And we really appreciate you being on the podcast. Wraps it up for another episode. You got some feedback for us, want some advice, got some questions, maybe you're just lonely, want to talk to us.
Rachael West:
Or you have a suggestion for another podcast.
Aaron Chapin:
Yes, we're always looking for suggestions, everybody, but you got to send us the email, podcast@psea.org. I'm Aaron Chapin.
Rachael West:
And I'm Rachael West.
Aaron Chapin:
And you have been listening to Duty Free Lunch. Bye for now.
Voiceover:
You've been listening to Duty Free Lunch with the Pennsylvania State Education Association. Visit psa.org/podcast to learn more. And don't forget to subscribe and share. Paid for by the Pennsylvania State Education Association.