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Helicomb workers honored by FAA

by: D.R. STEWART World Staff Writer
12/19/2007 12:00 AM

Awards to 18 people at the aerospace company mark high levels of training.

Eighteen employees at Helicomb International Inc., the Tulsa aerospace manufacturer and repair station, have been awarded the Federal Aviation Administration's highest accolade for training.

The aviation maintenance technicians at Helicomb, 1402 S. 69th East Ave., received the FAA's Diamond Award for initial and recurrent training during the past year.

FAA officials presented the awards Tuesday in ceremonies at Helicomb's 65,000-square-foot plant.

In the highly technical and ever-changing aerospace industry, training is a necessity, industry officials say, and it is an important element of the U.S. preeminence in the field.

Dwayne Chatmon, 46, one of the Diamond Award winners and a 17-year employee at Helicomb, said ongoing training is a hallmark of the industry.

"Every day in the aircraft field we learn more and take on more responsibility," Chatmon said. "It's always a challenge for me, and it's something I enjoy."

At Helicomb, which is privately held and employs 115 people -- up 28 percent in the past year -- training programs translate into mechanics working "smarter and leaner," said President Robert Austin.

"Some people say training is too expensive, but it's well worth the dollars," Austin said. "It takes quite a few hours to go through recurrent training. But recurrent training, no matter how long you have been here, is going to improve your qualifications and your skills."

The proof is in the numbers: A 28 percent increase in Helicomb's work force in the past year produced a 35 percent increase in revenue, to $16 million.

Austin projects revenue of $20 million in 2008, a 25 percent increase.

"If your sales growth is larger than your employment growth, that's how you win this game," Austin said.

Helicomb has a commitment to training, he said, even though it subtracts employee time from billable production.

"A real popular thing we do is buy lunch" for employees, Austin said. "They eat lunch and train at the same time."

The Diamond Award is the highest among five awards presented by the FAA. Each of the training levels require workers to attend a minimum of two hours of training on FAA regulations and policy in addition to satisfactory completion of each award prerequisite.

The Diamond Award requires completion of a college-level course of three credit hours or 40 classroom hours in mathematics, English, science, safety, human factors, management subjects or similar career-related maintenance courses.

In addition, Diamond honorees must complete one of the following:

A 10-day industry aviation maintenance course.
Fifty-eight hours of aviation industry maintenance training.
Teaching at least 15 hours of aviation industry maintenance training.

John Davis, 74, is a quality control inspector at Helicomb and a former commercial pilot. He said the training represented by his Diamond Award is helping Helicomb's reputation as a manufacturer and repair center for composite aircraft and helicopter components.

"In helicopters, in particular, a sandwich of metal and fiberglas honeycomb is lightweight and strong, which makes helicopters more efficient," Davis said. "The honeycomb sandwich along with lightweight gas turbine engines almost doubled the air speed and payload capacities of helicopters."

Helicomb's bread and butter is its manufacture of helicopter components.

"It's mainly been petroleum-related," Austin said. "We do a lot of work in the Middle East, the North Sea, South America -- anywhere with offshore petroleum."

With commercial aviation picking up and the continued strength of military, civilian, corporate and petroleum aviation, Austin projects another five years of growth in aerospace.

His forecast is borne out by the estimates of the Aerospace Industries Association in Arlington, Va. Total industry sales this year are expected to be $195 billion, up 32 percent in the last 10 years, according to AIA.

The aerospace industry's foreign trade surplus -- one of the few areas of the economy with a surplus -- was $55 billion in 2006, up 34 percent from 10 years earlier.

And the future, as Helicomb's president said, looks strong: The industry backlog of orders is more than $294 billion, AIA said, a 40 percent increase in the last decade.

"All the market segments in aviation are running at high gear," Austin said.

D.R. Stewart 581-8451
don.stewart@tulsaworld.com

Associate Images:

Soua Yang, a mechanic at Helicomb International Inc., uses Kevlar to form a wheel bearing mold for an Apache helicopter Tuesday. Yang is among 18 Helicomb employees receiving the FAA Diamond Award.

Lonnie Sikharin, a lead mechanic at Helicomb International Inc., applies epoxy on an insert for a helicopter floor panel Tuesday. He is among 18 Helicomb employees receiving the FAA Diamond Award.

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