Salem’s next pilots, truck drivers to benefit from workforce grants
A Chemeketa truck driving student gets pointers on inspecting a trailer. The college’s program is set to expand with free slots for 30 students thanks to a state workforce training grant. (Rachel Alexander/Salem Reporter)
When an influx of Afghan refugees began arriving in Salem last year, Luke Glaze saw an opportunity.
Glaze, the executive director of Salem for Refugees, said among those relocated to Salem were a group of seven highly trained pilots with decades of flying experience – some for the military, some in cargo planes.
The local nonprofit assists refugees in getting settled into Salem by helping them find housing, set up needed appointments, learn English and find jobs. The pilots, he said, had an obvious skillset that’s in demand, but also needed U.S. credentials to be allowed to fly here. Getting those credentials meant some local flight time, as well as proof of their previous flight records in Afghanistan.
“This is somewhat challenging, because obviously in an evacuation not everyone was able to get out their full set of records,” he said. Many of the refugees escaped Afghanistan by flying the planes they could access to neighboring countries, he said, and they and their families have been targeted by the Taliban as a result.
Now, Glaze has secured a workforce training grant to help.
With about $200,000 from Willamette Workforce Partnership, the group of seven pilots will have their fees for U.S. background checks covered and be able to complete the flight hours they need to receive U.S. certification, beginning training at the McMinnville Municipal Airport this fall. Completing the program means they’ll be able to fly commercially, doing work like aiding Christmas tree harvest.
“They can fly immediately: firefighting, agriculture, cargo flights, things like that,” Glaze said.
The grant is one of seven given to local organizations as part of the Future Ready Oregon workforce training initiative, a $200 million package Gov. Kate Brown signed in April that’s intended to get more Oregonians qualified to work in high-wage, high-demand fields including health care, construction and manufacturing.
Willamette Workforce Partnership received about $1.9 million from the package and expects to receive more in the fall, said executive director Kim Parker-Llerenas.
Three other Salem projects also received money. Two were for nonprofit community health organization the Interface Network, which is partnering with Chemeketa Community College to train bilingual emergency medical technicians and community health workers. Those grants total about $457,000.
Chemeketa also received a $181,000 grant to train 30 people in the college’s commercial truck driving program.
“Those are extremely high wages, so they were hitting a lot of those metrics of high-wage positions,” said Ami Maceira, program director for the workforce partnership, said of the truck driving and pilot grant proposals.
Chemeketa launched its truck driving program in 2019, then suspended it due to the pandemic.
Classes resumed in January and have been full since, driving instructor Patrick Chappell said.
The program draws a diverse group – Chappell said he’s had students ranging in age from 20 to 62 from every ethnic background, both male and female.
“You name it, I’ve had it,” he said.
The college currently has just one instructor, and Chappell is limited to three students at a time – the number that can fit in the truck. The program takes about a month to complete and costs students around $5,000.
With the grant, Chemeketa plans to expand the program to offer more slots and make classes free, said Paul Davis, the Chemeketa dean who oversees the program. Students will still have to pay for a learner’s permit and Department of Transportation required physical, and their skills test at the end of the course, but the grant means they can cut the cost to get certified to a few hundred dollars.
Davis said Chemeketa is using the grant to hire another part-time instructor to accommodate the demand, and a program coordinator.
“We have been so busy ever since January of this year,” he said. “Classes have been full since the get go.”
The grant program will target students who meet demographic or income criteria, including women, people of color, veterans, people with disabilities, people from rural communities, people receiving food stamps, English learners, members of Oregon’s nine federally recognized tribes, and formerly incarcerated people.
Davis said they expect to open applications in early August. More information about the program is available on the Chemeketa website.
Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.
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Rachel Alexander is Salem Reporter’s managing editor. She joined Salem Reporter when it was founded in 2018 and covers education, economic development and a little bit of everything else. She’s been a journalist in Oregon and Washington for a decade and is a past president of Oregon's Society of Professional Journalists chapter. Outside of work, you can often find her gardening or with her nose buried in a book.
