Student Aviators Soar to Top Placement Ratings

Published: June 29, 2015 | Author: Brittany Cecil | Read Time: 2 minutes

From desk to cock pit students within Southern Utah University’s professional pilot program are soaring into professional jobs, landing a 95 percent job placement rating after just two years of opening its doors.

Giving students the necessary and applicable hours, the professional pilot program also boasts the highest graduation rates in the country, giving students, like recent graduate Jodi Brommer, the conviction to say; “I have the coolest job in the world.”

Brommer, a student from Santa Fe, N.M., recently landed her dream job when an SUU instructor asked his students if they had completed a certain number of flight hours, and Brommer confidently said yes and got a job with P.J. Helicopters in northern California.

“I can do anything,” says Brommer. “I help fix power lines for the electrical companies or fly to Canada to pick up aircraft.”

Brommer stated that many recent pilot grads struggle finding a job that fits their needs, but she explained that because of SUU’s pilot program students are able to get amazing careers right after graduation.

Michael Mower, SUU chief flight instructor, attributed this to the constant training students receive at high elevation and the large amount of hours each accrues.

He said, “The students can walk out of here with a bunch of time, hours and training with the aircraft, with no additional cost to the employers. Combined with the specific aircraft that employers are actually utilizing, makes our students highly attractive from an employers view point.”

 The SUU Professional Pilot Program is the highest elevation training school in the country. The environment provided by SUU leads to career opportunities around the world.

According to Mower, their job placement and retention is incredibly high because of how students are trained. He said, “Cedar City’s altitude allows us to take the students up in a few minutes and be over 10,000 feet.”

Mower went on to say, “Once we’re in the mountains we fly them into situations that give them training they may not see until they reach the employer and are being trained in the exact situations they’ll experience in the industry. We’re giving our students as close to a turnkey education as they can get.”

It’s not just the high elevation and flying hours that Mower states that sets SUU students apart; according to him it’s the experiential education the pilot program offers.

“We are just taking that mantra that SUU already has and expanding it to the aviation,” Mower proclaimed.

SUU provides an associate of applied science and bachelor of interdisciplinary studies degree with two emphases: rotor wing pilot (helicopter) and fixed wing pilot (conventional airplane). Typically the program takes 18 months before students are able to get their first job. 

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