Mayor Julián Castro Tours Alamo Academies

Who says women can’t build planes?

Not Nicole Maldonado, a petite 20-year-old who works at the Lockheed Martin Kelly Aviation Center building fuel-control nozzles and anti-icing valves for airplanes.

“I try to promote and get other women involved,” Maldonado said. “They see that I’m a really girly girl and think they can do it, too.”

Though aerospace is not a traditional career for women, the Burbank High School graduate decided to give it a try after hearing a presentation about the Alamo Area Academies, programs that offer free college courses and paid internships for high school students.

A partnership between local industry, city governments and the Alamo Colleges, the four Alamo Area Academies work to create a pipeline of qualified workers for the city’s most high-demand fields — aerospace, information technology and security, manufacturing and health professions.

On Wednesday, Mayor Julián Castro toured the Alamo Academies, stopping at Lockheed Martin to talk to academy graduates like Maldonado who now hold well-paying jobs building and testing airplanes.

“They are enhancing our economic development potential as a city. We are going to thrive because they are investing in themselves ... and creating a knowledge base in this city that employers need,” Castro said.

For industry, the program is “purely self-serving,” said Klaus Weiswurm, CEO of Innovation Technology Machinery and chairman of the Alamo Area Academies board of directors.

“I can’t find enough employees ... so we grow our own,” Weiswurm said. “They don’t come in with any bad habits. We train them and take them the rest of the way.”

For the students, the benefit is free college credits and a jump-start on a career. As juniors and seniors, the students spend half a day taking college classes at the various academies and do a paid internship over the summer. As with all dual-credit students in Bexar County, the Alamo Colleges waive tuition and fees.

Shortly after graduating from high school, many of the students already have earned an associate’s degree. Since 2002, the academies have graduated more than 500 students, and 92 percent are either working in their field of training or continuing with higher education.

Students doing cyber security training typically go on to a university because a bachelor’s degree is required in the field, academies Director Gene Bowman said. Others, like 21-year-old Adam Arroyo, pursue a four-year degree while holding down a full-time job.

“None of my friends are doing anything like this,” said Arroyo, who makes $17 an hour testing airplane engines at Lockheed while attending Northwest Vista College. “My other friends are still working at Bill Miller (Bar-B-Q) or Target.”