OKC’s aerospace trajectory still on target, thanks in part to state’s education system

Aerospace continues its ascent as one of the top industries in the state of Oklahoma, adding more companies and more jobs to this extremely important ecosystem that has quickly become the state’s second largest industry behind energy. We know through a study conducted by the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber earlier this year, the industry added 55 new aerospace entities since 2015 in the Oklahoma City region alone and with it, more than 6,600 workers.

However, the $11.6 billion annual impact aerospace has in the regional economy is destined to become even larger as more aerospace companies enter the market or plan to expand operations in OKC. United Dynamics is one of those companies. The Shawnee, Okla., company recently established an engineering center in downtown Oklahoma City, fulfilling its desire to expand its footprint there by taking advantage of the many amenities around downtown as a way to attract the best and brightest engineers. Company leadership also sees the move as an opportunity to do more sub-contract work for the federal government, i.e. Tinker Air Force Base. Other companies have also made the move or expanded to Oklahoma City over the last several years, including drone manufacturer Kratos Defense & Security Solutions and Skydweller Aero, just to name a few.

But all of the aerospace and defense entities that call Oklahoma City home, including Tinker AFB and its 26,000 employees, the largest single site employer in the state, may not have fared so well if not for the number of colleges and universities and career technology centers across the region producing the skilled workforce they need to flourish here.

The state’s two public research universities, the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University, have been very active in this space for several years and have recently developed a working relationship where they sometimes refer to themselves as “competimates.” This allows them to partner together in various projects to lift the industry to another level, each bringing its own unique strengths and expertise to the table for the betterment of the state. In addition, the two schools have on-going working relationships with other state and local entities to grow the Industry in the Oklahoma City region, including the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber.

OSU has long been involved in research of unmanned or autonomous systems, mainly the air variety; however, they have recently expanded their Unmanned Systems Research Institute to include other autonomous projects, including the electrification of manned aircraft and other experiential research and learning opportunities for faculty and students as part of USRI.

“We started last year talking about how we could expand our role and rebrand USRI primarily because we started doing a lot of work in the last couple of years that you can’t really classify as unmanned systems. For example, electrification of manned aircraft is certainly a big thing, so we have FAA projects working on that right now,” said USRI Director Dr. Jamey Jacob.

With the recent addition of the Oklahoma Aerospace Institute for Research and Education as part of OSU Discovery in Oklahoma City, more programs and course offerings will be available to even more students across the OKC region who are looking to have a career in aerospace. OSU Discovery, formerly owned by Baker Hughes, is located in the heart of the OKC Innovation District. Now with USRI and OAIRE, Oklahoma State University can now better connect assets from the research side with assets from the education side.

“These two institutes allow us to bring some of these umbrella centers in, such as inSPACE, which is our NASA program where we have educators at every NASA center across the country wearing that OSU badge and working with students with the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) piece and being able to connect that back to the research side,” Jacob said, who noted that OSU has seen enrollment into the school’s aerospace engineering program increase by more than 400% over the last 10 years.

The University of Oklahoma recently formed its own institute – the Oklahoma Aerospace and Defense Innovation Institute – aimed at growing the university’s capabilities to address challenges in aerospace, defense and national security. Cliff Wojtalewicz was hired in July as OADII’s new operations manager after spending the last five years serving as the director of operations and administration at Discovery Park on the campus of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. He said OADII will focus on several key areas that will bring OU and the aerospace and defense sector to the next level: radar innovations, modernization and sustainment, advanced technologies and international security policy.

“We are going to augment OADII’s capabilities with other advanced technologies such as quantum computing, artificial intelligence and machine learning, the types of things that are going to bring to bear these large problems the aerospace and defense sector has,” Wojtalewicz said.

Ryan Goertzen, vice president of workforce development at AAR Corp., a maintenance, repair and overhaul company at Oklahoma City’s Will Rogers World Airport, is like most aviation or aerospace leaders in the OKC region and across the state who believe aviation education in Oklahoma is second to none.

 “There is no place like Oklahoma educationally speaking from the post-secondary level and with the CareerTech system. When you look at AAR, we have facilities across the country, and I deal with a lot of economic development folks and education folks, and it is always great to be in the state of Oklahoma and because of the network we have and the uniqueness that we have with the different educational providers in Oklahoma,” Goertzen said.

This story originally appeared in the November 2021 edition of the VeloCity newsletter.