Speaker 0: McDowell's World number four thirty seven for 12/08/2025.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you very much, and we're thrilled to be joined by one of the most successful business leaders and people anywhere in the country, whether it's technology, no matter what business you're talking about, there's really nobody quite like him. Michael Dell, very much of a legend who's here with his really exciting announcement. It's so amazing.
Speaker 0: And I am the aforementioned Michael Dell, but, really, it's just Mike. Yeah. Works either way. Hey. I hope, everybody's had a good month of December so far.
And, yeah, back so soon after NAPOD promo. And what I what I got today is an interview I did with Dan Jonkoff of the Legacy Aviation Learning Center, and I did put this out over on Cup and Traverse City. So if you've, heard the interview over there, well, this is the same interview. I figured, put it far and wide. So, that's what I'm gonna get into.
Of course, if you guys are listening to Cup of Traverse City, you already know what the weather is and, all that. But, yeah, I've been having a lot of fun with that. You can find that over cupoftraversecity.com and or on any platform that you listen to podcasts on. So, anyway, without further ado, I'm gonna send this, over to myself and Dan from, this Saturday. So today, I'm at Legacy Aviation in Traverse City.
It's a, A and P school, but I'll let, the founder and, chairman of the board, Dan Junkoff, that will will tell you all about it. How are you doing, Dan?
Speaker 2: Great, Mike. How are you?
Speaker 0: So far, so good. It just all coffeed up and, you know, we already had one incident today. So
Speaker 2: Well, you called me chief cooking bottle washer, and I cleaned it up. So Yeah. There you go. You're absolutely right.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I had a little coffee incident here in the office, but, that's alright. So, tell us a little bit about, you know, how this all got started and what's the goals. You know, just hey. Give me your give me your spiel.
Speaker 2: Well, sure. Glad to do it. It's been a fun journey so far. And it all started when, I retired from my, first career, and only career other than, what I'm doing here at Legacy Aviation Learning Center is I, was a funeral director and owned, funeral homes, and I was a fifth generation. And finally, my daughters took over.
They're both funeral directors. And, so it was important that I, let them be on their own. Be take a few in a home where, you know, every young person should do, and that's make it even better than I left it.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And, so I was, talking with my wife and telling her how, retirement was really boring. You know? I was used to working seven days a week, twenty four hours a day, like often funeral directors do. And, because nobody makes an appointment when they're gonna die. Right?
Speaker 0: Correct.
Speaker 2: Yep. Anyway, so, she said, well, gosh. You've been flying for, like, forty five years. You should, you know, do something at the airport. And I looked at her and said, boy, I've always wanted to be on the airport authority.
And she said, well, you should apply. So I, called the airport authority, and they said, well, believe it or not, the deadline to apply is tomorrow at 05:00. And so I quick called the, person that's supposed to get the, application, and she said, I'll send it to you. You gotta have it to me by 05:00 tomorrow. And I, did everything she said.
And, next thing you know, I was, called to do an interview, and there were five or six people interviewing. And I did the interview with a, a whole bunch of people in the room, county commissioners and and administrative type people. And, next thing you know, I got appointed to the airport commission Yeah. Which was kinda exciting.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Sure is. I've been to a couple of those meetings since Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, our airport has turned into an authority from a commission, because we finally you know, we're gonna have a million people, come in and out of our airport on the airlines, this year. Over a million, actually. And so, now we have our own police force, our own fire department, our own, in house attorney, our own in house engineer. It's quite the little airport. We're now the third biggest airport in the state of Michigan.
Yeah.
Speaker 0: And I think you I think, last I looked, you're the second busiest.
Speaker 2: Oh, really?
Speaker 0: Yeah. I think that was what I had read somewhere.
Speaker 2: I don't know how that could be true. I gotta believe Grand Rapids and Detroit beat us out. But Yeah.
Speaker 0: Maybe maybe it was the third. I don't remember.
Speaker 2: Third is probably the right answer. I hate to say it. But, anyway, so I got on the, the authority, and the orientation consists of showing everybody who is new to the authority every square inch of the airport. Mhmm. Did I say every square inch?
Speaker 0: Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2: Truly the truth. And, so went through the building, went through the parking lots, went through everything, and we even decide then get in a car, and we drive up and down and all around the airport. And, we go by all the buildings, explain what's in them, who's in them, what they do. And we, stopped in front of the building we're in right now doing this interview. And, Kevin Klein, our, the director of our airport, executive c CEO, he says, you know, isn't it a shame, That airport that building right there is gonna be sold tomorrow or the next day, and it's gonna be sold for a non aviation use.
And he says
Speaker 0: I heard rumors about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Everybody heard rumors. Well, the rumors were that it was gonna be sold to people who are gonna grow marijuana in it. Well, as soon as it becomes a non aviation use, this particular building is on city property, not airport property, and it has what they call a hole in the fence. Yeah.
But as soon as, it's non aviation use, the hole in the fence gets closed Yeah. Forever. Never to open again. So I went home, told my wife that, look, we can't let this cool building, you know, become a non aviation use, and have the hole in the fence go away. And she said, well, how much is it?
And I told her, she said, well, you need a partner.
Speaker 0: For sure.
Speaker 2: So I got I called a couple of friends and, one of them said, absolutely. I'm in. I'll be your half partner in this building. So we called up the owner and said, look. We've got, we're gonna do something with that building.
We don't know what it's gonna be, but, we're gonna help kids and we don't know how. Yeah. But we're gonna do something a lot better than possible other uses that are being looked at.
Speaker 0: Right. Right.
Speaker 2: And, and he said, well, I'll have to think about that. And he stopped the other sale to think about it. I presume. I'm not actually sure about that, but I know it was supposed to happen quick. And, he came back to us and said, it's yours.
Speaker 0: Nice. It's a nice building. It's been used for a couple other things, you know, in the front half of the building. It was a TV station at one point. I forget what else was in here, but, you know, and then, somebody had rented the the hangar part and, you know, but it's it is unique that you you have that hole in the fence where the building's not owned or not on on, land that's, so you own the land with the building where if you build something on the airport, you get a lease.
Right? Is that how that works?
Speaker 2: That's exactly how it works. And all of a sudden, you know, your world is governed by the FAA, TSA, and and everybody else that has to live on the airport, and we're not governed by any of those people. We just pay taxes to the city, and that's pretty priceless.
Speaker 0: Yeah. For sure.
Speaker 2: You know, we have a lease that's not a fifty year lease or a hundred year lease. It's a forever lease till I sell it.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I don't have to get anybody's permission on who I sell it to.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. It's a it's a beautiful building, and you guys really have it fitted out pretty well for its intended use now.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. A friend of mine actually built it a long time ago when I was probably in my late late twenties, believe it or not. And, he used to have a King Air, and he would drive it into the hangar. And then he went It's a
Speaker 0: big hangar.
Speaker 2: Back it out of the hangar. And he had a garage door opener that opened the door when he arrived, and it was pretty slick.
Speaker 0: Yeah. The guy I knew that, rented it for a while had a King Air 90
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 0: In here.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 0: It's probably the same guy.
Speaker 2: Bob Andrews?
Speaker 0: No. I'm thinking Bob Goff.
Speaker 2: Bob Goff, actually. I think he did
Speaker 0: After that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So Isn't that something? I'd forgot Bob was here. You're right.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I flew with him several times.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, anyway, after we, we got the building, we, didn't quite know what to do with it that was gonna help kids, but, you know, we threw a lot of stuff at the wall. Right? Ideas, we had people come and giving us ideas. We had all kinds of ideas, but nothing stuck great.
But, then one day, the idea of well, gosh. It would make a great, you know, mechanic school, a and p school.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And, so, it kinda slid down the wall pretty slow. It didn't flat drop off the wall after we we threw the idea there, so we checked into it. And just as we were getting ready this was happening, the FAA changed the rules on how A and P schools work. Mhmm. They changed the rules because That
Speaker 0: never happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Hardly ever happens. Right? Well, they changed the rules because there's a huge shortage of A and Ps coming up. Over 600,000, A and Ps shortage in the next ten years or so, worldwide.
And, they realized that somebody's gotta speed the process up a little bit. So they changed it from a time based school, in other words, taken at least two years of AMP school to become an AMP, to a knowledge based.
Speaker 0: And and for those not aviation savvy, AMP is airframe and power print plant. Airframe and power plant. See, English is optional today.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and that means that they can work on anything that's flies, and they're licensed by the FAA, the United States government's agency that takes care and governs all all things that fly. Right?
Speaker 0: Thick book that everybody has to have.
Speaker 2: Right. Yep. All the FARS. Well, anyway, so, we found out that it was now knowledge based. And so I looked at, my partner and he and said, you know, I'll bet you that there's a lot of fluff in those two year schools.
And I'll bet we can do it in one year. And so, it just so happened that I was at a conference, and I sat next to a gentleman who was clearly the smartest man in the room. And it turns out that he was the one who helped the FAA see that there was a different way that it could be done that could speed up how many mechanics get into the workforce so they can start training and learning and fill the gap that's gonna happen. And, I talked to him and he said, yeah. Absolutely.
You could do it in a year, and and I'll help you. And, he had his PhD, doctor Sean Galligan, and, he said that, you can make it happen. And so we called the FAA and said, hey, we wanna start a school here and we wanna make it so it's a 12 program. And they said, yeah, well, that'll take a lot of paperwork. Let's see how that goes.
Yeah. And,
Speaker 0: Weren't you guys the first school?
Speaker 2: We were one of the first.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's right. And doctor Galligan helped us to do it. And the, he had everything, all the syllabuses, all the he just had it all set up. He just knew what it would take and how long each class should take and, you know, it was amazing how smart he was is. And, but about doing it.
Next thing you know, the FAA said, we can't find any flaw in this. No kidding. You're you're being tutored, by doctor Galligan. He's super smart, and he helped the law to get passed. And, next thing you know, we had our license, and we started.
And we started with only three kids because the FAA didn't approve us till November. But three months later in January or three months six weeks later, we started with three kids. That's as many as we could recruit. And, we learned from them, and they learned from us. And they graduated in a year, and it was pretty darn exciting.
We've gone from there. And so far, we've had, 25 about 26 kids graduate, in two years, and we got 27 kids in the class right now. And our next class, which starts August, of 26, will have about 45 to 50 kids in it, and that's where we're gonna stop at 50 kids.
Speaker 0: And you're gonna be doing two shifts on that one, probably.
Speaker 2: No. But we're gonna be able to do two sides of the building. Mhmm. And we're gonna hire two more instructors, so we'll have four instructors for 50 kids.
Speaker 0: Nice.
Speaker 2: And that's a great ratio of teaching. That's a unique ratio because we're teaching a lot. This is Yeah. Yeah. You know, you come to our school, and if you miss a day, you gotta make it up at night.
Or you gotta you know, we have adjunct instructors here on Saturdays, and the kids have to make up time. Yeah. And it's intense.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Imagine. You know, I went through Air Force maintenance school and, you know, that was pretty intense, but we only did, like, four hours a day or six hours a day or something. And, this sounds a little more intense.
Speaker 2: Our kids get here at 07:00 in the morning, because we wanna teach them what it's like to work a real shift.
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 2: Shifts start at 07:00 in the morning at the major airlines and in and in a lot of maintenance shops, even, general aviation, and we wanna teach them how to get up that early. A lot of them didn't do that when they went to high school. Right? And, so they start and they go from a seven to three, five days a week. And, and it's all learning.
You know? There's incredible amount of book work. They gotta take their FRA exams. We allow them to take it as they go. Mhmm.
They gotta take, three written exams that they have to pass, and they gotta take two oral and practical with FAA examiners.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And, they all they can do that all in a year.
Speaker 0: Yeah. It's it's amazing. And, you know, this hangar out here, you you know, they get a little, on, you know, they get practical experience working on stuff.
Speaker 2: We can do so many different, projects out there. They learn riveting. They learn, safety wiring. They learn fiberglass. They learn electronics.
Speaker 0: Safety wiring was always fun to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, believe it or not, funny you bring that up. We've had many, many, many, companies come in from, you know, Envoy to SkyWest to Coletta. And the one thing they say is, make sure the kid can safety wire.
Speaker 0: Because Now do you make them do it manually, or do you get the safety wire pliers?
Speaker 2: They get both. They get to learn both. But, you know, but every kid that leaves here, because what we were told by the, by the companies that are gonna hire them, they know how to safety wire.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And that's one of their classes that they get graded on, and, it's important.
Speaker 0: That and soldering were my two, bugaboos.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm not I'm not sure how much work they get on all that, but they get they learn a little bit about everything. Sure. Because all we're doing in reality, Mike, is we're giving them a license to learn.
Speaker 0: Yep. And that's the way it is in all aviation. You know, you get your pilot's license. That's a license to learn because you don't know everything. And I'm sure with the mechanics, it's the same thing.
And, you know, and with the mechanic, you know, you got hundreds of airframes out there that are different. And engine, you know, even a Cessna one seventy two could have, you know, any number of engines in the thing. So that's a different skill. And avionics, all the avionics, and you probably don't teach a lot of avionics.
Speaker 2: We don't. No?
Speaker 0: Yeah. Because that's kind of a subspecialty.
Speaker 2: Working on it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I can tell you one of the best stories that I have about starting a school is, when we were getting our, all the, materials and all the parts so the kids could have laboratories and work on things, one of the things the FAA said was, you know, you need a jet engine. Mhmm.
Well, you just don't go out and get a jet engine with a budget. Right? They even the ones that are run out cost maybe thousands and thousands and tens of twenties and thirties and forties and maybe a $100,000 just to get one of those. Right? So I I call over to, Coletta Airlines, over in Oscoda, Michigan, and I said, you know, I need a favor.
I mean, we're we're gonna be in A and P school. They're I'm sure our kids will wanna stay in Michigan, and you're in Michigan. But the FAA said, you know, you've gotta have, a jet engine. And they said, well, let us think about that a little bit. And I think it was the next day they called up and said, we got a seven twenty seven here
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 2: That we're gonna donate to you. It has four jet engines. Mhmm. Three on the airplane and the APU. Yeah.
And, So
Speaker 0: you got the whole airplane?
Speaker 2: We got the whole airplane, and we'll let you even keep it here for free. Oh, nice. And you can bring the students over here and do whatever you want to it, whenever you want. Nice. And, the next thing you know, they, we said, well, they said we gotta have a a jet engine in our building here.
They said, well, we'll take the number one engine off, and you get a trailer and come over here. We'll put it on the trailer for you, and you can bring it home.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. I've seen it sitting out there. Sitting out there.
Speaker 2: And now it's got all the numbers on it. Every single part that we teach the kids what every single part of that seven twenty seven's engines are. And, it's a great experience. Then we take them to Oscoda once or twice a year, and we go through the airplane. It's great fun.
Speaker 0: And Oscoda, that's an old Air Force Base. Wertz Smith Air Force Base was what it was. It was a B 52 base.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 0: At least when they shut it down. And now over there, there's lots of maintenance activity going on. Coletta is there. What's the other? Evergreen is at the other one.
Yeah. That's there. Plus, there's a seven forty seven engine shop over there.
Speaker 2: Right. It's a boneyard.
Speaker 0: Yeah. And it's a boneyard. Lots of seven forty sevens out there.
Speaker 2: Seven forty sevens. We actually had a kid, a student. I call them kids because they're all way younger than me. But, one of our students wanted to be a de assembler. Mhmm.
And I That's a
Speaker 0: good place to
Speaker 2: do. And work and take airplanes apart.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: And, we all thought that was pretty pretty funny and pretty unique. Well, in the beginning, he thought, well, he really didn't have to learn how to fix
Speaker 0: them. Mhmm.
Speaker 2: And he doesn't know what was studying too hard. And so we call I yeah. One of our instructors called Colette and said, you know, what's it gonna take? They said, well, first, he's gotta get his A and P license. He's also gotta learn how to fix them because you gotta know how to fix them in order to know how to take them apart.
Speaker 0: Right. Because, yeah, if you take a part off of an airplane that's gonna be reused, you gotta know how it works because if you take it off in the wrong way, it might not be any good.
Speaker 2: Exactly. You know? So the next thing you know, the kid really really engaged in class and really became, a learning, smart, young person.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And, he graduated, and, yeah, I haven't heard yet if he got the job. Right. But, he could have changed. You know? A year can
Speaker 0: Yeah. You just never know. You know?
Speaker 2: Forever and I know.
Speaker 0: Wanna go work on Cessnas or something. You know?
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 0: Yep. Yeah. Because, yeah, as an air force, you know, we'd have to go pull parts off of either racks or, you know, even go to the boneyard in Tucson and pull something, you know. And and, yeah, I don't know what you were doing. Just, plain and simple.
Yeah. And, so so you've had, you said 27, now that have graduated. Yeah. And pretty good, job placement, I'm sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah. They all get jobs. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a 100% job placement.
They're gonna get two, three, four offers. We've got kids in, Marquette, Michigan working for Envoy. We've got kids, down at, boy, we're in Chicago at SkyWest. We've got kids, working down in Battle Creek at one of the MROs. We've got kids in Salt Lake City.
They're all over. We've got one student that, you know, was, bound determined to work for, Delta, which has an extremely difficult, you know, application process.
Speaker 0: They're top notch.
Speaker 2: They're very good. And, and she wants to work in Tokyo. And so, you know, we've got, job jobs available for kids where they can work six months in Alaska and six months in Honolulu. Yeah. You know?
I mean, we got jobs where they can fly on airplanes.
Speaker 0: It's hard to find a mechanic. You know, if you own an airplane yourself and you, you know, need something done, there's not a ton of places you can take your airplane. You know? Exactly. You know, there's a few around, but, and, you know, and a lot of those guys are getting older, so they're gonna need new blood.
Speaker 2: Yeah. All the, AMPs from, World War two are, you know, they're not working anymore. And so now you got the next generation AMPs from the military. And and, you know, now we're having to produce our own. And there's about, I don't know, a 150 schools around the country is all, that are doing this and, training kids.
Some of the programs most of the programs are still two year programs. So that's what makes our program unique. We're a one year program and, you know
Speaker 0: all done at one, you know, in one fell swoop.
Speaker 2: One fell swoop.
Speaker 0: You know, Traverse City is a nice place to be most of the year.
Speaker 2: I think it's a good place to be even in the winter.
Speaker 0: Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2: For sure. We, the kids that come here that don't already live here, we have an apartment complex that, that we put, we turn into a dorm room. And, you know, they've got a pool. They've got an exercise room. I mean,
Speaker 0: it's pretty challenging around here to find housing.
Speaker 2: Right. Well, there's a lot of them going up right now, so it's a little easier than it used to be a couple years ago.
Speaker 0: For sure. Yeah. Apartments everywhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Going up. We're very blessed.
Speaker 0: But,
Speaker 2: But we'll put four kids in a, you know, two bedroom apartment, do a bunk bed, and it's unbelievably reasonable for the students. And, and they're loving it. Yeah. Yeah. We even provide maid service.
We know that putting four boys in a room without a little maid service on occasion is probably not gonna be a good experience
Speaker 0: after Christmas. The girls aren't much better.
Speaker 2: Probably right.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, so so, yeah, you guys are you start classes, what, twice a year?
Speaker 2: We used to, but now we're down to once a year. We're looking at other options. But most kids think that school starts, you know, in August or September.
Speaker 0: Right. Makes sense.
Speaker 2: Spend their whole year. And to start a a new class in January
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 2: Takes a lot of mental strength to to get your brain around that.
Speaker 0: Sure. Yeah. So the Air Force was funny. They just started it whenever they needed to.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, well, that's because they can control you a lot better.
Speaker 0: Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing nothing like being in a cornfield in Illinois marching to class. Exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah. We don't do that.
Speaker 0: Right? So a lot of other things you got going on here in this building. I know, you allow, the EAA, local group to use the building somewhat and, also civil air patrol.
Speaker 2: Right. When I bought the building, I wanted this to be the center of aviation for our airport. Because once, you know, nine eleven happened, you know, you just can't go out and walk up to an airplane and say hi to the pilot and and sit in the side of the runway and watch airplanes take off. You know, they put up fences. They gave you badges.
You know, it made it very difficult for
Speaker 0: people to congregate. Can't hang out at the airport here. No. Now, you know, some other airports you can, but Yep. You know, like Antrim, I I, you know, I've been up there a few times.
You can go hang out in the in the building there, and there's always people around, and it's kind of fun. But, yeah, this is kind of what this is becoming here. You know, I've I've joked with people that I I've gotta go to coffee klatch, you know? Yes. And we come over here Saturday mornings and drink coffee, eat donuts, and, you know, just shoot the bull.
Speaker 2: Just like you used to thirty years ago when you had the old building, for general aviation. Right?
Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So that's one of the things that, my partner understood in the air when we bought this building is that we were gonna give, the EAA and the CAP, free office, and, and rooms to,
Speaker 0: the same rooms.
Speaker 2: On Mondays and Thursday nights and other days of the week, Saturdays when we're not in school. Yeah. And, it works great.
Speaker 0: And we got quite the sim room here now too. What is there? Four or five, six of them in that room?
Speaker 2: Six sims and even one moving sim. Yeah. And that's one of the things we do at our school too is we teach all the prospective AMP students, you know, how to fly an airplane on a Sim. Yeah. So they have a general idea.
Speaker 0: Yeah. It's always a good thing, you know. A lot of the AMPs I know, also are pilots. So that's that's a good thing, but not all of them. Oh.
You know? And some of them, you know, I don't like flying, but I like airplanes. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Being on, you know, around airplanes is pretty sexy. Right?
Speaker 0: Yeah. It
Speaker 2: can be. I mean, airplanes are really cool. Yeah. And, to know how to fix them or fly them is, you know, not not for everybody. And, it's pretty cool if you're one of those people that are.
Speaker 0: Yeah. It's, it's definitely, it's a muscle memory thing because, you know, it's that was my trouble in training is, you know, just gaining the muscle memory. Once once you do that, though, you can jump into a different airplane, and it's everything's similar. Yeah. You know?
Speaker 2: I'm a pilot also. I'm I have no tools. Why I picked, the mechanic school, the AMP school, I have no clue. All I know is they made it my life so much better keeping my airplanes flyable and safe with my family that I always appreciated and admired them.
Speaker 0: Right.
Speaker 2: And, that's why I thought, wow. This would be great because I don't know a thing about it, but wouldn't it be cool to have more around?
Speaker 0: Yeah. For sure. And I've seen your airplane in the hangar here getting this done on it, and that's kind of a handy bonus.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So yeah. So the students can't work on an airplane that's flyable
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 2: But they can observe work. Sure. So I'll make it so that the A and P who has a inspector's license, IA, he can do my annual in the hangar, and the students can watch it. Yep. And, invaluable.
Right? And, you know, they can watch all the plates get taken off and do a lot of things and, stick their head in.
Speaker 0: They do have a apprentice program of some sort, don't they?
Speaker 2: They do. It's like a three year program
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Where you can work at a at an eight at
Speaker 0: In a shop.
Speaker 2: In a shop somewhere. And, but holy mackerel. It's not great wages. And, three years is a long time in our life when you can come to a school and in one year You're
Speaker 0: gonna get it knocked out.
Speaker 2: Get it knocked out and be making really good wages. Our kids are making, you know, upper twenties and into the thirties really rapidly. And, most of them will be making in five years into the forties.
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 2: $40 an hour. It's it's a, you know, life changing event and making enough money to to have a good middle class living.
Speaker 0: The only reason I never went for the AMP was the the length of the time you had to go to to school, you know, and what we did in the Air Force didn't count.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 0: You know, so that was, you know, if if I could have just got out and I'd probably be doing that right now.
Speaker 2: Sure. But one of the things we're starting here soon, not exactly sure when, is we're gonna do a special program for the veterans Mhmm. That get out of the service. And for some reason, the FAA doesn't acknowledge that they probably are AMPs in the service. But there's a two week program that we could do for them
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 2: That would teach them how to pass the FAA test. And, and we're gonna do that, as soon
Speaker 0: as we can. That's changed since I got I got out thirty years ago. So Yeah. I have no idea how that works now.
Speaker 2: I have no idea how it works either, but all I know is that, two of our three instructors right now are retired military, and they wanna help their, you know, their fellow military friends get their license. And, so we're gonna start one of those programs soon.
Speaker 0: That that'd be great. Yeah. You know, especially, you know, we've got the coast guard base here, and there's a lot of guys over there that wanna come back here when they retire.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 0: Maybe that'd be perfect for them.
Speaker 2: Yeah. We have one coast guard retiree. We have one air force retiree. We have, one instructor that, she worked for two major airlines in her life and then a major airline manufacturer. And, so we've got lots of different experiences here.
Speaker 0: Yeah. And, yeah, all here in Little Traverse City. Yeah. Little Traverse City.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And that's what makes our school special too, is that we're a smaller school. There are lots of really big schools out there, but, you know, our main goal is everyone becomes an A and P. It's not just getting through the school. You're gonna get out and, you know, get your licenses.
That's really important to us. We don't give up on you if you don't get it done exactly by the last day of school. Sure. You can come back as often as you need to practice, to study, to go over what maybe isn't perfectly clear to you. We've always got instructors available for you on, certain nights of the week and on weekends.
And, that's really important to us. Alright. Our goal is to have one hundred percent of the kids graduate from our school and become AMPs.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. Because a lot of, you know, like nursing school, for instance, they don't care whether you ever, get the license. They just want you to get through the school. Yeah.
Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's not us. Yeah. We are doing everything humanly possible to we even make it so that we pay included in your tuition is the, fee to take the test.
Speaker 0: Oh, nice.
Speaker 2: And that's thousands of dollars that a lot of these kids don't have. But that's included. We even pay for tools.
Speaker 0: That's similar to a check ride with a DPE. You know, you have to pay them to
Speaker 2: Yeah. What's a check ride with a DPE cost nowadays?
Speaker 0: I paid 800.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Yeah. So a lot of these students don't have $800. So we include it in their tuition and, so that when they're ready to do it, they come to us, tell them they're ready. We write them a check.
It's simple as that. Nice. And, they can go take the test.
Speaker 0: Yeah. And then you get that all done. They got the the nice piece of plastic or paper. I think it's the same as a pilot's license, isn't it? Yeah.
It's a plastic.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's it's pretty darn special. Yeah. And, and, yeah, it's really important that, we're a little unique that way and that we really, really, really, really push hard to make sure everyone,
Speaker 0: you know, if you're gonna
Speaker 2: just their goal.
Speaker 0: Spend all that time doing it. And even though it's only a year, you wanna make sure it finishes, you know, and that's the thing, you know. And it I mean, you you probably don't have a lot of people dropping out of it, do you?
Speaker 2: We don't.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I
Speaker 2: was gonna say Dropout rate is virtually zero. Yeah. We had one young man who dropped out. We found out that, you know, he had some prior challenges with the law. And we knew that because of that, most employers wouldn't hire him.
Speaker 0: Right.
Speaker 2: And so we helped him to realize that maybe it wasn't in his best interest. Yeah. And so, you know, we're not doing this just to, you know, get their money to, you know, for tuition. If we don't think they're gonna become AMPs, we're gonna help them to find something else that they'll be better at. Mhmm.
Right?
Speaker 0: Sure. And, you know, that's that's the thing. It's more of a, you you know, obviously, it's a for profit thing.
Speaker 2: Oh, we're actually a nonprofit.
Speaker 0: Oh, you are a nonprofit. Okay. Then that's even better.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That's why we were able to get that $7.27 donated to us.
Speaker 0: Oh, very good.
Speaker 2: Took a tax write off.
Speaker 0: Oh, I'm sure they did. What what is the 7 they did? I wonder what a $7.27 would go for these days. I don't think any of them are flying anymore, are they?
Speaker 2: I don't think so. Yeah.
Speaker 0: Anyway, so, yeah, it's a great thing you guys are doing here. And, like I said and myself, I appreciate the, EAA, connection and just the chance to hang out with people. You know, I've retired military, retired air for or airline pilots that come in here for coffee and
Speaker 2: We got students and astronauts that come here.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Exactly.
Speaker 2: We've got every single type of aviation you can imagine. Today, there are, five or six kids, from the, Legacy Aviation AMP school that are doing virtual reality things around here. And, you know, I mean, there's just so fun.
Speaker 0: Something going on all the time.
Speaker 2: All all day Saturday. And if you come on at most nights, there's something happening.
Speaker 0: Nice.
Speaker 2: You know, between the civil air patrol, the EAA, the students getting extra help. It's crazy busy building.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Very good. I guess we'll call this an interview, and, thanks for being on. We've been talking about this, what, for a year? Yeah.
Finally just set a date, said we're gonna do this. Damn it.
Speaker 2: Yep. And we got her done. Thank you. Thank you for letting me share what a cool program we have. If you're, looking to, find us on the Internet, we are under legacyaviation.org.
Speaker 0: Okay. And I will also have links and whatnot in the show notes. So, just go to whichever podcast you're listening to because I'm gonna put this out on two, and, there'll be links to everything in the show notes.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you very much, and we're thrilled to be joined by one of the most successful business leaders and people anywhere in the country, whether it's technology, no matter what business you're talking about, there's really nobody quite like him. Michael Dell, very much of a legend who's here with his really exciting announcement. It's so amazing.
Speaker 0: And I am the aforementioned Michael Dell, but, really, it's just Mike. Yeah. Works either way. Hey. I hope, everybody's had a good month of December so far.
And, yeah, back so soon after NAPOD promo. And what I what I got today is an interview I did with Dan Jonkoff of the Legacy Aviation Learning Center, and I did put this out over on Cup and Traverse City. So if you've, heard the interview over there, well, this is the same interview. I figured, put it far and wide. So, that's what I'm gonna get into.
Of course, if you guys are listening to Cup of Traverse City, you already know what the weather is and, all that. But, yeah, I've been having a lot of fun with that. You can find that over cupoftraversecity.com and or on any platform that you listen to podcasts on. So, anyway, without further ado, I'm gonna send this, over to myself and Dan from, this Saturday. So today, I'm at Legacy Aviation in Traverse City.
It's a, A and P school, but I'll let, the founder and, chairman of the board, Dan Junkoff, that will will tell you all about it. How are you doing, Dan?
Speaker 2: Great, Mike. How are you?
Speaker 0: So far, so good. It just all coffeed up and, you know, we already had one incident today. So
Speaker 2: Well, you called me chief cooking bottle washer, and I cleaned it up. So Yeah. There you go. You're absolutely right.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I had a little coffee incident here in the office, but, that's alright. So, tell us a little bit about, you know, how this all got started and what's the goals. You know, just hey. Give me your give me your spiel.
Speaker 2: Well, sure. Glad to do it. It's been a fun journey so far. And it all started when, I retired from my, first career, and only career other than, what I'm doing here at Legacy Aviation Learning Center is I, was a funeral director and owned, funeral homes, and I was a fifth generation. And finally, my daughters took over.
They're both funeral directors. And, so it was important that I, let them be on their own. Be take a few in a home where, you know, every young person should do, and that's make it even better than I left it.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And, so I was, talking with my wife and telling her how, retirement was really boring. You know? I was used to working seven days a week, twenty four hours a day, like often funeral directors do. And, because nobody makes an appointment when they're gonna die. Right?
Speaker 0: Correct.
Speaker 2: Yep. Anyway, so, she said, well, gosh. You've been flying for, like, forty five years. You should, you know, do something at the airport. And I looked at her and said, boy, I've always wanted to be on the airport authority.
And she said, well, you should apply. So I, called the airport authority, and they said, well, believe it or not, the deadline to apply is tomorrow at 05:00. And so I quick called the, person that's supposed to get the, application, and she said, I'll send it to you. You gotta have it to me by 05:00 tomorrow. And I, did everything she said.
And, next thing you know, I was, called to do an interview, and there were five or six people interviewing. And I did the interview with a, a whole bunch of people in the room, county commissioners and and administrative type people. And, next thing you know, I got appointed to the airport commission Yeah. Which was kinda exciting.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Sure is. I've been to a couple of those meetings since Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, our airport has turned into an authority from a commission, because we finally you know, we're gonna have a million people, come in and out of our airport on the airlines, this year. Over a million, actually. And so, now we have our own police force, our own fire department, our own, in house attorney, our own in house engineer. It's quite the little airport. We're now the third biggest airport in the state of Michigan.
Yeah.
Speaker 0: And I think you I think, last I looked, you're the second busiest.
Speaker 2: Oh, really?
Speaker 0: Yeah. I think that was what I had read somewhere.
Speaker 2: I don't know how that could be true. I gotta believe Grand Rapids and Detroit beat us out. But Yeah.
Speaker 0: Maybe maybe it was the third. I don't remember.
Speaker 2: Third is probably the right answer. I hate to say it. But, anyway, so I got on the, the authority, and the orientation consists of showing everybody who is new to the authority every square inch of the airport. Mhmm. Did I say every square inch?
Speaker 0: Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2: Truly the truth. And, so went through the building, went through the parking lots, went through everything, and we even decide then get in a car, and we drive up and down and all around the airport. And, we go by all the buildings, explain what's in them, who's in them, what they do. And we, stopped in front of the building we're in right now doing this interview. And, Kevin Klein, our, the director of our airport, executive c CEO, he says, you know, isn't it a shame, That airport that building right there is gonna be sold tomorrow or the next day, and it's gonna be sold for a non aviation use.
And he says
Speaker 0: I heard rumors about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Everybody heard rumors. Well, the rumors were that it was gonna be sold to people who are gonna grow marijuana in it. Well, as soon as it becomes a non aviation use, this particular building is on city property, not airport property, and it has what they call a hole in the fence. Yeah.
But as soon as, it's non aviation use, the hole in the fence gets closed Yeah. Forever. Never to open again. So I went home, told my wife that, look, we can't let this cool building, you know, become a non aviation use, and have the hole in the fence go away. And she said, well, how much is it?
And I told her, she said, well, you need a partner.
Speaker 0: For sure.
Speaker 2: So I got I called a couple of friends and, one of them said, absolutely. I'm in. I'll be your half partner in this building. So we called up the owner and said, look. We've got, we're gonna do something with that building.
We don't know what it's gonna be, but, we're gonna help kids and we don't know how. Yeah. But we're gonna do something a lot better than possible other uses that are being looked at.
Speaker 0: Right. Right.
Speaker 2: And, and he said, well, I'll have to think about that. And he stopped the other sale to think about it. I presume. I'm not actually sure about that, but I know it was supposed to happen quick. And, he came back to us and said, it's yours.
Speaker 0: Nice. It's a nice building. It's been used for a couple other things, you know, in the front half of the building. It was a TV station at one point. I forget what else was in here, but, you know, and then, somebody had rented the the hangar part and, you know, but it's it is unique that you you have that hole in the fence where the building's not owned or not on on, land that's, so you own the land with the building where if you build something on the airport, you get a lease.
Right? Is that how that works?
Speaker 2: That's exactly how it works. And all of a sudden, you know, your world is governed by the FAA, TSA, and and everybody else that has to live on the airport, and we're not governed by any of those people. We just pay taxes to the city, and that's pretty priceless.
Speaker 0: Yeah. For sure.
Speaker 2: You know, we have a lease that's not a fifty year lease or a hundred year lease. It's a forever lease till I sell it.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I don't have to get anybody's permission on who I sell it to.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. It's a it's a beautiful building, and you guys really have it fitted out pretty well for its intended use now.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. A friend of mine actually built it a long time ago when I was probably in my late late twenties, believe it or not. And, he used to have a King Air, and he would drive it into the hangar. And then he went It's a
Speaker 0: big hangar.
Speaker 2: Back it out of the hangar. And he had a garage door opener that opened the door when he arrived, and it was pretty slick.
Speaker 0: Yeah. The guy I knew that, rented it for a while had a King Air 90
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 0: In here.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 0: It's probably the same guy.
Speaker 2: Bob Andrews?
Speaker 0: No. I'm thinking Bob Goff.
Speaker 2: Bob Goff, actually. I think he did
Speaker 0: After that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So Isn't that something? I'd forgot Bob was here. You're right.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I flew with him several times.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, anyway, after we, we got the building, we, didn't quite know what to do with it that was gonna help kids, but, you know, we threw a lot of stuff at the wall. Right? Ideas, we had people come and giving us ideas. We had all kinds of ideas, but nothing stuck great.
But, then one day, the idea of well, gosh. It would make a great, you know, mechanic school, a and p school.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And, so, it kinda slid down the wall pretty slow. It didn't flat drop off the wall after we we threw the idea there, so we checked into it. And just as we were getting ready this was happening, the FAA changed the rules on how A and P schools work. Mhmm. They changed the rules because That
Speaker 0: never happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Hardly ever happens. Right? Well, they changed the rules because there's a huge shortage of A and Ps coming up. Over 600,000, A and Ps shortage in the next ten years or so, worldwide.
And, they realized that somebody's gotta speed the process up a little bit. So they changed it from a time based school, in other words, taken at least two years of AMP school to become an AMP, to a knowledge based.
Speaker 0: And and for those not aviation savvy, AMP is airframe and power print plant. Airframe and power plant. See, English is optional today.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and that means that they can work on anything that's flies, and they're licensed by the FAA, the United States government's agency that takes care and governs all all things that fly. Right?
Speaker 0: Thick book that everybody has to have.
Speaker 2: Right. Yep. All the FARS. Well, anyway, so, we found out that it was now knowledge based. And so I looked at, my partner and he and said, you know, I'll bet you that there's a lot of fluff in those two year schools.
And I'll bet we can do it in one year. And so, it just so happened that I was at a conference, and I sat next to a gentleman who was clearly the smartest man in the room. And it turns out that he was the one who helped the FAA see that there was a different way that it could be done that could speed up how many mechanics get into the workforce so they can start training and learning and fill the gap that's gonna happen. And, I talked to him and he said, yeah. Absolutely.
You could do it in a year, and and I'll help you. And, he had his PhD, doctor Sean Galligan, and, he said that, you can make it happen. And so we called the FAA and said, hey, we wanna start a school here and we wanna make it so it's a 12 program. And they said, yeah, well, that'll take a lot of paperwork. Let's see how that goes.
Yeah. And,
Speaker 0: Weren't you guys the first school?
Speaker 2: We were one of the first.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's right. And doctor Galligan helped us to do it. And the, he had everything, all the syllabuses, all the he just had it all set up. He just knew what it would take and how long each class should take and, you know, it was amazing how smart he was is. And, but about doing it.
Next thing you know, the FAA said, we can't find any flaw in this. No kidding. You're you're being tutored, by doctor Galligan. He's super smart, and he helped the law to get passed. And, next thing you know, we had our license, and we started.
And we started with only three kids because the FAA didn't approve us till November. But three months later in January or three months six weeks later, we started with three kids. That's as many as we could recruit. And, we learned from them, and they learned from us. And they graduated in a year, and it was pretty darn exciting.
We've gone from there. And so far, we've had, 25 about 26 kids graduate, in two years, and we got 27 kids in the class right now. And our next class, which starts August, of 26, will have about 45 to 50 kids in it, and that's where we're gonna stop at 50 kids.
Speaker 0: And you're gonna be doing two shifts on that one, probably.
Speaker 2: No. But we're gonna be able to do two sides of the building. Mhmm. And we're gonna hire two more instructors, so we'll have four instructors for 50 kids.
Speaker 0: Nice.
Speaker 2: And that's a great ratio of teaching. That's a unique ratio because we're teaching a lot. This is Yeah. Yeah. You know, you come to our school, and if you miss a day, you gotta make it up at night.
Or you gotta you know, we have adjunct instructors here on Saturdays, and the kids have to make up time. Yeah. And it's intense.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Imagine. You know, I went through Air Force maintenance school and, you know, that was pretty intense, but we only did, like, four hours a day or six hours a day or something. And, this sounds a little more intense.
Speaker 2: Our kids get here at 07:00 in the morning, because we wanna teach them what it's like to work a real shift.
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 2: Shifts start at 07:00 in the morning at the major airlines and in and in a lot of maintenance shops, even, general aviation, and we wanna teach them how to get up that early. A lot of them didn't do that when they went to high school. Right? And, so they start and they go from a seven to three, five days a week. And, and it's all learning.
You know? There's incredible amount of book work. They gotta take their FRA exams. We allow them to take it as they go. Mhmm.
They gotta take, three written exams that they have to pass, and they gotta take two oral and practical with FAA examiners.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And, they all they can do that all in a year.
Speaker 0: Yeah. It's it's amazing. And, you know, this hangar out here, you you know, they get a little, on, you know, they get practical experience working on stuff.
Speaker 2: We can do so many different, projects out there. They learn riveting. They learn, safety wiring. They learn fiberglass. They learn electronics.
Speaker 0: Safety wiring was always fun to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, believe it or not, funny you bring that up. We've had many, many, many, companies come in from, you know, Envoy to SkyWest to Coletta. And the one thing they say is, make sure the kid can safety wire.
Speaker 0: Because Now do you make them do it manually, or do you get the safety wire pliers?
Speaker 2: They get both. They get to learn both. But, you know, but every kid that leaves here, because what we were told by the, by the companies that are gonna hire them, they know how to safety wire.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And that's one of their classes that they get graded on, and, it's important.
Speaker 0: That and soldering were my two, bugaboos.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm not I'm not sure how much work they get on all that, but they get they learn a little bit about everything. Sure. Because all we're doing in reality, Mike, is we're giving them a license to learn.
Speaker 0: Yep. And that's the way it is in all aviation. You know, you get your pilot's license. That's a license to learn because you don't know everything. And I'm sure with the mechanics, it's the same thing.
And, you know, and with the mechanic, you know, you got hundreds of airframes out there that are different. And engine, you know, even a Cessna one seventy two could have, you know, any number of engines in the thing. So that's a different skill. And avionics, all the avionics, and you probably don't teach a lot of avionics.
Speaker 2: We don't. No?
Speaker 0: Yeah. Because that's kind of a subspecialty.
Speaker 2: Working on it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I can tell you one of the best stories that I have about starting a school is, when we were getting our, all the, materials and all the parts so the kids could have laboratories and work on things, one of the things the FAA said was, you know, you need a jet engine. Mhmm.
Well, you just don't go out and get a jet engine with a budget. Right? They even the ones that are run out cost maybe thousands and thousands and tens of twenties and thirties and forties and maybe a $100,000 just to get one of those. Right? So I I call over to, Coletta Airlines, over in Oscoda, Michigan, and I said, you know, I need a favor.
I mean, we're we're gonna be in A and P school. They're I'm sure our kids will wanna stay in Michigan, and you're in Michigan. But the FAA said, you know, you've gotta have, a jet engine. And they said, well, let us think about that a little bit. And I think it was the next day they called up and said, we got a seven twenty seven here
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 2: That we're gonna donate to you. It has four jet engines. Mhmm. Three on the airplane and the APU. Yeah.
And, So
Speaker 0: you got the whole airplane?
Speaker 2: We got the whole airplane, and we'll let you even keep it here for free. Oh, nice. And you can bring the students over here and do whatever you want to it, whenever you want. Nice. And, the next thing you know, they, we said, well, they said we gotta have a a jet engine in our building here.
They said, well, we'll take the number one engine off, and you get a trailer and come over here. We'll put it on the trailer for you, and you can bring it home.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. I've seen it sitting out there. Sitting out there.
Speaker 2: And now it's got all the numbers on it. Every single part that we teach the kids what every single part of that seven twenty seven's engines are. And, it's a great experience. Then we take them to Oscoda once or twice a year, and we go through the airplane. It's great fun.
Speaker 0: And Oscoda, that's an old Air Force Base. Wertz Smith Air Force Base was what it was. It was a B 52 base.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 0: At least when they shut it down. And now over there, there's lots of maintenance activity going on. Coletta is there. What's the other? Evergreen is at the other one.
Yeah. That's there. Plus, there's a seven forty seven engine shop over there.
Speaker 2: Right. It's a boneyard.
Speaker 0: Yeah. And it's a boneyard. Lots of seven forty sevens out there.
Speaker 2: Seven forty sevens. We actually had a kid, a student. I call them kids because they're all way younger than me. But, one of our students wanted to be a de assembler. Mhmm.
And I That's a
Speaker 0: good place to
Speaker 2: do. And work and take airplanes apart.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: And, we all thought that was pretty pretty funny and pretty unique. Well, in the beginning, he thought, well, he really didn't have to learn how to fix
Speaker 0: them. Mhmm.
Speaker 2: And he doesn't know what was studying too hard. And so we call I yeah. One of our instructors called Colette and said, you know, what's it gonna take? They said, well, first, he's gotta get his A and P license. He's also gotta learn how to fix them because you gotta know how to fix them in order to know how to take them apart.
Speaker 0: Right. Because, yeah, if you take a part off of an airplane that's gonna be reused, you gotta know how it works because if you take it off in the wrong way, it might not be any good.
Speaker 2: Exactly. You know? So the next thing you know, the kid really really engaged in class and really became, a learning, smart, young person.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And, he graduated, and, yeah, I haven't heard yet if he got the job. Right. But, he could have changed. You know? A year can
Speaker 0: Yeah. You just never know. You know?
Speaker 2: Forever and I know.
Speaker 0: Wanna go work on Cessnas or something. You know?
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 0: Yep. Yeah. Because, yeah, as an air force, you know, we'd have to go pull parts off of either racks or, you know, even go to the boneyard in Tucson and pull something, you know. And and, yeah, I don't know what you were doing. Just, plain and simple.
Yeah. And, so so you've had, you said 27, now that have graduated. Yeah. And pretty good, job placement, I'm sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah. They all get jobs. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a 100% job placement.
They're gonna get two, three, four offers. We've got kids in, Marquette, Michigan working for Envoy. We've got kids, down at, boy, we're in Chicago at SkyWest. We've got kids, working down in Battle Creek at one of the MROs. We've got kids in Salt Lake City.
They're all over. We've got one student that, you know, was, bound determined to work for, Delta, which has an extremely difficult, you know, application process.
Speaker 0: They're top notch.
Speaker 2: They're very good. And, and she wants to work in Tokyo. And so, you know, we've got, job jobs available for kids where they can work six months in Alaska and six months in Honolulu. Yeah. You know?
I mean, we got jobs where they can fly on airplanes.
Speaker 0: It's hard to find a mechanic. You know, if you own an airplane yourself and you, you know, need something done, there's not a ton of places you can take your airplane. You know? Exactly. You know, there's a few around, but, and, you know, and a lot of those guys are getting older, so they're gonna need new blood.
Speaker 2: Yeah. All the, AMPs from, World War two are, you know, they're not working anymore. And so now you got the next generation AMPs from the military. And and, you know, now we're having to produce our own. And there's about, I don't know, a 150 schools around the country is all, that are doing this and, training kids.
Some of the programs most of the programs are still two year programs. So that's what makes our program unique. We're a one year program and, you know
Speaker 0: all done at one, you know, in one fell swoop.
Speaker 2: One fell swoop.
Speaker 0: You know, Traverse City is a nice place to be most of the year.
Speaker 2: I think it's a good place to be even in the winter.
Speaker 0: Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2: For sure. We, the kids that come here that don't already live here, we have an apartment complex that, that we put, we turn into a dorm room. And, you know, they've got a pool. They've got an exercise room. I mean,
Speaker 0: it's pretty challenging around here to find housing.
Speaker 2: Right. Well, there's a lot of them going up right now, so it's a little easier than it used to be a couple years ago.
Speaker 0: For sure. Yeah. Apartments everywhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Going up. We're very blessed.
Speaker 0: But,
Speaker 2: But we'll put four kids in a, you know, two bedroom apartment, do a bunk bed, and it's unbelievably reasonable for the students. And, and they're loving it. Yeah. Yeah. We even provide maid service.
We know that putting four boys in a room without a little maid service on occasion is probably not gonna be a good experience
Speaker 0: after Christmas. The girls aren't much better.
Speaker 2: Probably right.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, so so, yeah, you guys are you start classes, what, twice a year?
Speaker 2: We used to, but now we're down to once a year. We're looking at other options. But most kids think that school starts, you know, in August or September.
Speaker 0: Right. Makes sense.
Speaker 2: Spend their whole year. And to start a a new class in January
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 2: Takes a lot of mental strength to to get your brain around that.
Speaker 0: Sure. Yeah. So the Air Force was funny. They just started it whenever they needed to.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, well, that's because they can control you a lot better.
Speaker 0: Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing nothing like being in a cornfield in Illinois marching to class. Exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah. We don't do that.
Speaker 0: Right? So a lot of other things you got going on here in this building. I know, you allow, the EAA, local group to use the building somewhat and, also civil air patrol.
Speaker 2: Right. When I bought the building, I wanted this to be the center of aviation for our airport. Because once, you know, nine eleven happened, you know, you just can't go out and walk up to an airplane and say hi to the pilot and and sit in the side of the runway and watch airplanes take off. You know, they put up fences. They gave you badges.
You know, it made it very difficult for
Speaker 0: people to congregate. Can't hang out at the airport here. No. Now, you know, some other airports you can, but Yep. You know, like Antrim, I I, you know, I've been up there a few times.
You can go hang out in the in the building there, and there's always people around, and it's kind of fun. But, yeah, this is kind of what this is becoming here. You know, I've I've joked with people that I I've gotta go to coffee klatch, you know? Yes. And we come over here Saturday mornings and drink coffee, eat donuts, and, you know, just shoot the bull.
Speaker 2: Just like you used to thirty years ago when you had the old building, for general aviation. Right?
Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So that's one of the things that, my partner understood in the air when we bought this building is that we were gonna give, the EAA and the CAP, free office, and, and rooms to,
Speaker 0: the same rooms.
Speaker 2: On Mondays and Thursday nights and other days of the week, Saturdays when we're not in school. Yeah. And, it works great.
Speaker 0: And we got quite the sim room here now too. What is there? Four or five, six of them in that room?
Speaker 2: Six sims and even one moving sim. Yeah. And that's one of the things we do at our school too is we teach all the prospective AMP students, you know, how to fly an airplane on a Sim. Yeah. So they have a general idea.
Speaker 0: Yeah. It's always a good thing, you know. A lot of the AMPs I know, also are pilots. So that's that's a good thing, but not all of them. Oh.
You know? And some of them, you know, I don't like flying, but I like airplanes. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Being on, you know, around airplanes is pretty sexy. Right?
Speaker 0: Yeah. It
Speaker 2: can be. I mean, airplanes are really cool. Yeah. And, to know how to fix them or fly them is, you know, not not for everybody. And, it's pretty cool if you're one of those people that are.
Speaker 0: Yeah. It's, it's definitely, it's a muscle memory thing because, you know, it's that was my trouble in training is, you know, just gaining the muscle memory. Once once you do that, though, you can jump into a different airplane, and it's everything's similar. Yeah. You know?
Speaker 2: I'm a pilot also. I'm I have no tools. Why I picked, the mechanic school, the AMP school, I have no clue. All I know is they made it my life so much better keeping my airplanes flyable and safe with my family that I always appreciated and admired them.
Speaker 0: Right.
Speaker 2: And, that's why I thought, wow. This would be great because I don't know a thing about it, but wouldn't it be cool to have more around?
Speaker 0: Yeah. For sure. And I've seen your airplane in the hangar here getting this done on it, and that's kind of a handy bonus.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So yeah. So the students can't work on an airplane that's flyable
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 2: But they can observe work. Sure. So I'll make it so that the A and P who has a inspector's license, IA, he can do my annual in the hangar, and the students can watch it. Yep. And, invaluable.
Right? And, you know, they can watch all the plates get taken off and do a lot of things and, stick their head in.
Speaker 0: They do have a apprentice program of some sort, don't they?
Speaker 2: They do. It's like a three year program
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Where you can work at a at an eight at
Speaker 0: In a shop.
Speaker 2: In a shop somewhere. And, but holy mackerel. It's not great wages. And, three years is a long time in our life when you can come to a school and in one year You're
Speaker 0: gonna get it knocked out.
Speaker 2: Get it knocked out and be making really good wages. Our kids are making, you know, upper twenties and into the thirties really rapidly. And, most of them will be making in five years into the forties.
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 2: $40 an hour. It's it's a, you know, life changing event and making enough money to to have a good middle class living.
Speaker 0: The only reason I never went for the AMP was the the length of the time you had to go to to school, you know, and what we did in the Air Force didn't count.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 0: You know, so that was, you know, if if I could have just got out and I'd probably be doing that right now.
Speaker 2: Sure. But one of the things we're starting here soon, not exactly sure when, is we're gonna do a special program for the veterans Mhmm. That get out of the service. And for some reason, the FAA doesn't acknowledge that they probably are AMPs in the service. But there's a two week program that we could do for them
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 2: That would teach them how to pass the FAA test. And, and we're gonna do that, as soon
Speaker 0: as we can. That's changed since I got I got out thirty years ago. So Yeah. I have no idea how that works now.
Speaker 2: I have no idea how it works either, but all I know is that, two of our three instructors right now are retired military, and they wanna help their, you know, their fellow military friends get their license. And, so we're gonna start one of those programs soon.
Speaker 0: That that'd be great. Yeah. You know, especially, you know, we've got the coast guard base here, and there's a lot of guys over there that wanna come back here when they retire.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 0: Maybe that'd be perfect for them.
Speaker 2: Yeah. We have one coast guard retiree. We have one air force retiree. We have, one instructor that, she worked for two major airlines in her life and then a major airline manufacturer. And, so we've got lots of different experiences here.
Speaker 0: Yeah. And, yeah, all here in Little Traverse City. Yeah. Little Traverse City.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And that's what makes our school special too, is that we're a smaller school. There are lots of really big schools out there, but, you know, our main goal is everyone becomes an A and P. It's not just getting through the school. You're gonna get out and, you know, get your licenses.
That's really important to us. We don't give up on you if you don't get it done exactly by the last day of school. Sure. You can come back as often as you need to practice, to study, to go over what maybe isn't perfectly clear to you. We've always got instructors available for you on, certain nights of the week and on weekends.
And, that's really important to us. Alright. Our goal is to have one hundred percent of the kids graduate from our school and become AMPs.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. Because a lot of, you know, like nursing school, for instance, they don't care whether you ever, get the license. They just want you to get through the school. Yeah.
Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's not us. Yeah. We are doing everything humanly possible to we even make it so that we pay included in your tuition is the, fee to take the test.
Speaker 0: Oh, nice.
Speaker 2: And that's thousands of dollars that a lot of these kids don't have. But that's included. We even pay for tools.
Speaker 0: That's similar to a check ride with a DPE. You know, you have to pay them to
Speaker 2: Yeah. What's a check ride with a DPE cost nowadays?
Speaker 0: I paid 800.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Yeah. So a lot of these students don't have $800. So we include it in their tuition and, so that when they're ready to do it, they come to us, tell them they're ready. We write them a check.
It's simple as that. Nice. And, they can go take the test.
Speaker 0: Yeah. And then you get that all done. They got the the nice piece of plastic or paper. I think it's the same as a pilot's license, isn't it? Yeah.
It's a plastic.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's it's pretty darn special. Yeah. And, and, yeah, it's really important that, we're a little unique that way and that we really, really, really, really push hard to make sure everyone,
Speaker 0: you know, if you're gonna
Speaker 2: just their goal.
Speaker 0: Spend all that time doing it. And even though it's only a year, you wanna make sure it finishes, you know, and that's the thing, you know. And it I mean, you you probably don't have a lot of people dropping out of it, do you?
Speaker 2: We don't.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I
Speaker 2: was gonna say Dropout rate is virtually zero. Yeah. We had one young man who dropped out. We found out that, you know, he had some prior challenges with the law. And we knew that because of that, most employers wouldn't hire him.
Speaker 0: Right.
Speaker 2: And so we helped him to realize that maybe it wasn't in his best interest. Yeah. And so, you know, we're not doing this just to, you know, get their money to, you know, for tuition. If we don't think they're gonna become AMPs, we're gonna help them to find something else that they'll be better at. Mhmm.
Right?
Speaker 0: Sure. And, you know, that's that's the thing. It's more of a, you you know, obviously, it's a for profit thing.
Speaker 2: Oh, we're actually a nonprofit.
Speaker 0: Oh, you are a nonprofit. Okay. Then that's even better.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That's why we were able to get that $7.27 donated to us.
Speaker 0: Oh, very good.
Speaker 2: Took a tax write off.
Speaker 0: Oh, I'm sure they did. What what is the 7 they did? I wonder what a $7.27 would go for these days. I don't think any of them are flying anymore, are they?
Speaker 2: I don't think so. Yeah.
Speaker 0: Anyway, so, yeah, it's a great thing you guys are doing here. And, like I said and myself, I appreciate the, EAA, connection and just the chance to hang out with people. You know, I've retired military, retired air for or airline pilots that come in here for coffee and
Speaker 2: We got students and astronauts that come here.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Exactly.
Speaker 2: We've got every single type of aviation you can imagine. Today, there are, five or six kids, from the, Legacy Aviation AMP school that are doing virtual reality things around here. And, you know, I mean, there's just so fun.
Speaker 0: Something going on all the time.
Speaker 2: All all day Saturday. And if you come on at most nights, there's something happening.
Speaker 0: Nice.
Speaker 2: You know, between the civil air patrol, the EAA, the students getting extra help. It's crazy busy building.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Very good. I guess we'll call this an interview, and, thanks for being on. We've been talking about this, what, for a year? Yeah.
Finally just set a date, said we're gonna do this. Damn it.
Speaker 2: Yep. And we got her done. Thank you. Thank you for letting me share what a cool program we have. If you're, looking to, find us on the Internet, we are under legacyaviation.org.
Speaker 0: Okay. And I will also have links and whatnot in the show notes. So, just go to whichever podcast you're listening to because I'm gonna put this out on two, and, there'll be links to everything in the show notes.
