Officials with the March Joint Powers Authority believe a new training program they are supporting eventually will attract more high- tech industry to the Riverside area.

Last week, March Field Air Museum became host for the American Aerospace Technical Academy, a nonprofit school that teaches nondestructive testing. A class of 16 students began learning different methods of assessing the quality of mechanical and machined metal parts used in shipbuilding and automobile brakes.

Right now, its a little piece, said Riverside Councilman Mike Gardner, chairman of the March Joint Powers Commission. I think it has the potential to very quickly become a big piece. If you tied this to things like the Air Resources Board bringing its testing facility to UCR, I think theres a lot of synergy here that can really take off.

John Stewart is the founder of the technical school. While open to anyone, its main goal is to train veterans and low-income students for what Stewart says is an industry in need of skilled workers.

Nondestructive testing is a very niche market, Stewart said.

It uses tools such as ultrasound, radiography and magnetic-particles to find flaws in structural materials and metal components.

Stewart says the school at the March museum is one of the few in the country that offers full-time instruction for the 10-week, 400-hour course. With grant support, most students attend the school for free, he said.

You have a lot of other people who provide NDT training, but they provide one week at a time with several weeks in between, or a few hours a week, Stewart said.

Last year he was part of a coalition, along with Cal State Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Unified School District, that received a $1 million grant from the California Community Colleges Chancellors Office. The grant is aimed at establishing apprenticeship programs in industries that have not traditionally had them. Stewart said he is working with such firms as SpaceX and NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory to hire graduates of the NDT course.

Mike Forester, 74, of Ontario, started the training program in 2015 in Los Angeles. He now works for Integrated Quality Services in Ontario. He primarily does radiographic analysis of welds.

A Marine Corps veteran, Forester said he found the training program to be comprehensive and intense.

Several of his classmates who also got jobs at the Ontario firm, have left and are working for SpaceX and other companies, he said.

Kelly Bartlett, 47, is an Army veteran living at the U.S. Vets facility near March Air Reserve Base. Bartlett said he has been homeless for years and got tied into the program through U.S. Vets, a nonprofit agency that helps veterans get back on their feet.

I feel Im finally ready to move forward, and I feel this has tremendous potential, Bartlett said during a class break. I look forward to learning every facet.

Jesse Gossling, 25, came from Illinois to enroll in the course. He said he found out about the training during a counseling session at a Tony Robbins seminar. A veteran of both the Navy and the Marine Corps, he said the course was costing him nothing. He was impressed by the first day of class.

They are shoving information down our throats, he said. Im learning a lot. I have three chapters to learn today.

Jamil Dada, president of the March museums board and a member of the California Workforce Development Board, said the training program is also tied in with the Val Verde Unified School District in Perris.

We started this originally with the high school, and we added a program for veterans, he said. We get calls from people for workers, but we dont have people with the qualifications. Thats what this is. Its all about upscaling our workforce.

Were looking to expand this thing with other school districts, he added.

Gardner said March JPA is planning to build a $4 million, 50,000-square-foot building on Van Buren Boulevard, just west of Riverside National Cemetery. Part of that building, he said, would be classroom space for the academy.

He and the JPAs executive director Danielle Wheeler said it was part of a long-term push to bring defense and aerospace companies to the area. Wheeler said when she met with Defense Department officials recently in Washington, D.C., they told her such technicians are needed. The academy, she said, can be a source for those workers.

Its going to drive that defense industry here, she said.

Information regarding the American Aerospace Technical Academy is available at http://www.aatatraining.org

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Here's why Inland officials hope the American Aerospace Technical Academy will attract high-tech jobs to the area - Press-Enterprise