This article was authored by a local high school student as part of Lookout’s Journalism Scholarship Challenge
Traveling across the country is a luxury we sometimes take for granted, but without trained pilots, our opportunities to travel the world would be severely impacted. The rate of new pilots has decreased, but the demand for new ones is projected to increase over 3.9% between 2022 and 2032. Alan Grantz, a retired pilot and engineer, is concerned that “fewer and fewer people are getting into aviation.” He believes a lot has to do with the cost of training and lack of exposure to kids.
After coming out of a long, exhausting pandemic, the next 20 years for North American airlines will require around 130,000 new pilots. And there have been a lot of jobs lost over this time, not to mention a big increase in the cost of everyday items. A gallon of milk at your local store can now be up to $3.50!
Alan works at the Young Eagles program located in Watsonville. This club is focused on giving kids the chance to fly in an airplane with a pilot. Kids aged 8 to 17 can come with their parents to the Watsonville Municipal Airport every first Saturday of every month. There is a big group of volunteers helping to make this work, but Alan’s role is to do ground instruction. He introduces kids to airplane basics, like what the controls do, how pilots fly, and how the physics of planes work. Once Alan finishes the plane he is building, he hopes to also start flying kids.
Alan Grantz loves computer-aided design (CAD) because he can create something in his mind, and then after making it, he can hold it in his hand. This is why he used to work as a consultant engineer and in several mechanical and electromechanical jobs in the Silicon Valley area. Once he retired, he felt a need to give back to the community – particularly since his father, in Alan’s words, was very “community-oriented.” Alan says he took a sort of “lesson from him” because his father was so involved in service groups and organizations. Alan used to give some small airshow classes to kids and also compete in robotics competitions with kids. In one of these competitions, he and a group of kids built a radio-controlled robot that could throw a basketball. The team might have not won, but Alan said that what made him feel good about the whole experience was “when one of the students after graduation came up to me and I asked him what he was going to do after graduation, he looked at me with a serious face and said, ‘I’m going to engineering school, of course.’” This one event made it all worth it for him because he could see how even doing the smallest of things can have such a big impact on someone.
Alan says, “If students are interested, I want to be an advocate for engineering.” He wants to show that if anyone’s interested in planes or any other engineering fields they can do it as a job. This is why he feels it’s important for him to be in the Young Eagles program. He loves all the people who work in the program because in his words, “They all want to create interest and expand the interest of young people in aviation because we all feel passionate about aviation.”
The main coordinator for the program is Tom Hail who gets all the volunteers together for the program, like Alan. A big issue in the community is that there are not enough flight schools to give students an experience. But Alan thinks a Young Eagles program might just be the solution they need. Alan said, “I want to show them how strongly I feel, how much I enjoy this career, how I identify it, and how fortunate I feel to have been able to have this career.”
Alan said, “Once a young person has an interest in something then they’re going to start researching it on their own.” This creativity of kids is what pushes them to learn more and more, and by the time they realize it they have started working in that field. Not only that but, Alan said,“ I think engineers have a mindset of wanting to know how things work as a result it explains to them how things work or don’t work,” not to mention this makes better leaders for our world. Some of the “Young Eagles” who attended the program went on to become certified pilots. Alan believes that even if people don’t end up liking engineering, after doing the program they still build up a lot of hands-on skills that apply to basically every job. Alan Grantz’s dedication to the Young Eagles program shows his commitment to inspiring the next generation of aviators and engineers. By promoting a love for aviation and providing hands-on experiences, he believes in empowering young minds and shaping a future where the skies are not just navigated by pilots but also built by aspiring engineers.