Pax River Headhunting Starts Early

Patuxent River Naval Air Station is having trouble finding qualified engineers, mathematicians and scientists to staff its labs and aviation test operations, and the shortage is expected to worsen over the next decade.

But base officials think they might have found one solution: students at nearby elementary, middle and high schools.

Yes, these students still live with their parents and don't yet have driver's licenses. But in a few years, they will head to college, and base leaders would like them to pick science or math majors so that some can come back to Pax River to work.

To grab students' interest long before they take the SAT, the base and its Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division have partnered with the St. Mary's public schools' Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Consortium. The consortium has three programs: science and math-focused academies at three schools, a week-long program on the base for fifth-graders, and a summer space camp.

The partnership allows students and teachers to apply classroom lessons to real-life, but unclassified, activities at the air station. Those include a steam-powered catapult that launches planes off ships, computerized flight simulators and other high-tech projects.

Engineers working at Pax River also visit classrooms to answer questions and assist with experiments or science fair projects.

Cmdr. Steven R. Eastburg of the Aircraft Division said he hopes these hands-on experiences will lead students to internships at the base during high school and college, and eventually to a job near where they grew up.

"I need to hire 500 or 600 folks here in the next few years," he told county Board of Education members who visited the base last week. "We recruit at 90 schools, but it's like pulling teeth to get them to come to Southern Maryland. We want to reach out at the fourth-grade level and capture them for a lifetime."

This school year, the county opened STEM Academies for students in grades 4, 6 and 9 in three schools near the base: Lexington Park Elementary School, Spring Ridge Middle School and Great Mills High School. So far, 130 students and six teachers are involved, and county school administrators said they want to add another set of academies each year until all students in grades 4 through 12 at these schools can attend.

For the launch of the program this year, the schools had to hold lotteries because so many students were interested in attending, and an information night at Great Mills High drew a large crowd, said School Superintendent Michael J. Martirano.

The Board of Education, state Superintendent of Schools Nancy S. Grasmick and county Commissioner Daniel H. Raley (D-Great Mills) visited the academy at Spring Ridge Middle School on Monday and watched as students performed experiments and showed off their high-tech equipment.

One group of sixth-graders demonstrated how they used rubber tubes, foam, cork and other materials to build front bumpers and shock absorbers on small toy cars.