Base seeks additional maintainers Published May 27, 2010 By Wayne Crenshaw 78 ABW/PA ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. -- Much progress has been made toward the goal of hiring hundreds of new aircraft maintainers at Robins, but much work is still left to be done. As of this week, 796 aircraft maintenance positions have been filled since last June, said Donna Frazier, director of business operations in the 402nd Maintenance Wing. That's a lot of hiring, but they haven't even reached the halfway point on the hiring needed for the current fiscal year. The 402nd has another 900 positions which need to be filled by October. Most of those are aircraft maintenance positions, but some are in software engineering. The hiring is needed to meet the growing demand for aircraft as the U.S. military continues to wage global operations. Also, the impact of almost a decade of combat action is just now fully beginning to be seen in the wear and tear on the planes which come in for programmed depot maintenance. In other words, aircraft are requiring a lot more work now than a few years ago. "What we are seeing is the damage to those aircraft when they come back through is significantly more than in the past," she said. "We will continue to see aircraft with increased maintenance requirements due to the increased usage." Although hiring 900 people by October seems like a tall order, the base has already made offers to 400 people for those positions. After widely publicizing the hiring surge earlier this year, the employment office received 5,000 applications in two days just for mechanic helper positions. Those jobs allow those with related sheet metal experience, but not necessarily for aircraft, to be hired. However, the 402nd can only do so much on-the-job training and hired only 200 for those positions, which is still more than it had originally intended. It has also expanded the intended hiring for the co-op program, which allows students taking aircraft maintenance in area technical schools to work at the base while finishing school. While hiring experienced aircraft mechanics is the preference, it has proven challenging considering the number that are needed here. "We are having to be creative by increasing our number of co-op students and increasing the number of entry-level positions and doing on-the-job training," Frazier said. "The indications are that if we keep working as hard as we are working, we can find the people to fill our jobs, but it has taken a very involved process to get this hiring accomplished."