Piedmont donates an airplane to UMES’ Aviation Maintenance Technician School

SALISBURY, Md. — With the grand opening of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore’s Aviation Maintenance School, Piedmont Airlines gave a significant boost to the program.

The airline donated a retired aircraft and two static Rolls-Royce turbofan engines. Wicomico County officials said they had never seen a donation like this, adding that it will provide students with valuable hands-on experience and create job opportunities for the future.

Eric Morgan, president and CEO of Piedmont Airlines, described the donation as an investment in the community.

“Over the years, we began to understand that if we can hire locally out of those communities, and if we can train locally—keeping the people in their own community—when we can do the training, we have a better opportunity to retain those employees long-term once they develop the skills that we’re actually in need of in our industry,” Morgan said.

He added, “It’s an investment in tomorrow for the community. And it’s an investment, again, in our business. We need talented workers. Our industry requires a lot of certifications, specific skill sets to work on these very sophisticated airplanes. And so if we can help create a workforce development pathway that allows local students to achieve that and gain that certification, we feel like that’s an investment in ourselves and an investment in the community that we live in.”

Morgan also emphasized that the donation would benefit employers on the Eastern Shore.

“This is the first time that we’ve donated engines that are static or standalone to work on, and also donated an airplane like the one behind us here. So this is a first for us,” Morgan said. “And American Airlines enabled us to do this, allowing us to make this donation to the program, which we believe will benefit us over the years, but also benefit the industry and employers of all sorts in the community here on the Eastern Shore.”