COLLEGE TO FORM AEROSPACE CENTER.

Byline: Jim Skeen Daily News Staff Writer

Antelope Valley College is partnering with the aerospace industry to create a job training center to assist companies at Air Force Plant 42.

The center is intended to provide training to assist unemployed aerospace workers in getting work and to provide training for existing employees to keep them up to date in needed skills.

``We need to see our young people hired by our companies,'' said William Cleary, Northrop Grumman's representative to the alliance. ``This is what this training center is all about.''

Using a $430,011 federal Job Training Partnership Act, the college will create a job center at Plant 42. The college is joining the Boeing Co., Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin Corp.'s Skunk Works, Tracor Aircraft Systems Division, and the Los Angeles Department of Airports to create the center.

The training center will use existing facilities at Plant 42, starting off with Boeing's Fitness Center. Eventually, training could be conducted in shops at the various aerospace companies.

Aerospace company employees will serve as faculty.

``We're going to need the expertise the companies have that we don't have at the college,'' said Linda Spink, AVC's president.

The center will provide training in aircraft structures, electrical systems and composite materials.

The grant is expected to provide training for about 115 workers. The first training courses are expected to begin in June. The grant money will provide training through June 1999.

It is expected that future grants will continue to provide for the center's operation.

The college's partnership is with the Antelope Valley Aerospace Alliance, which Plant 42's contractors formed as a way to help land more business and to assist each other with common problems. The group has lobbied for more aerospace-friendly legislation and worked out a unique worker-sharing program that allowed Boeing to ``loan out'' workers to other companies to avoid layoffs.