The Future of Flight: Inside the New Butler Tech Aviation Center ✈️

The aviation industry is facing a critical workforce gap, and right here in Middletown, Ohio, we are building the solution.

On this episode of the What Gives Podcast, we’re filming on-location at the brand-new Butler Tech Aviation Center. Joining me is Dr. William Sprankles, CEO of Butler Tech and a powerhouse in educational innovation.

William is the architect of the Fifth Day Experience and is now overseeing one of the most advanced career tech facilities in the country. We’re diving deep into how this $15M investment at the Middletown Regional Airport is transforming lives and fueling the regional economy.

Key Takeaways:

How Butler Tech is tackling the Aviation Workforce Shortage.

The impact of the Aviation Education Hangar on Southwest Ohio students.

Why "Student Agency" is the secret sauce to modern education.

Stay tuned for the full episode!

#ButlerTech #AviationCareers #EducationInnovation #MiddletownOhio #CareerTech #PilotShortage #WhatGivesPodcast #WorkforceDevelopment

Transcript

0:00

Yo, it's the What Give podcast and we're locked in with the CEO of Butler Tech Career Schools, William Sprankles. Where the pilots in the clouds and the weathers are the fuel. Don't forget the tech in the trades. Butler Tech builds the skills that AI and bots can't hack. Real grit, real heart, we ain't looking back. Enough said, let's get into it. Speak, please welcome Dr. William Sprankles. As we sit here right now, I'm looking around and I'm like, where did I go to school? Because this is honestly incredible and it's so forward thinking. And I hear you as I'm introducing you to our listeners, William Sprankles. CEO, Superintendent, Butler Tech, can you introduce yourself on that route? Most school districts have traditional superintendents and over the years because of the relationship with the business community. Butler Tech has adopted a CEO slash superintendent framework. I like that. Yeah. You know, if you're smart, I say right now, you're thinking about buying a business or running a business and things like HVAC. um Sure. You know, janitorial services, the trades, electrical work. AI can't hack it. I never know how to pronounce his last name, but Gary Vee, who's big all over social media, he's constantly talking about how electricians are going to be the next billionaires or millionaires in the workforce, right? So what we know about the future of aviation is of course there's going to be things that are automated, right? Artificial intelligence and software, that's a whole division within the body of aviation. Yes. But the hands on work is not going away. Right. The actual mechanics, the actual pilots, right? The actual people that have to uh build the engines, repair the engines and One of the easiest things to understand, I don't know how I didn't know this until I was like late 30s or early 40s is when you go in an airport and your flight is late, it's not because the pilot didn't come to work on time. It's typically because a technician is repairing something or a technician or a mechanic is working on something. It's not because the pilot is causing the flight to be late. Yeah. Maybe in some airlines. I mean, they were at Vegas last night and they just, you know, couldn't get out of the bar, right? That might happen. But it's this recognition and understanding that CareerTech, which is about hands-on learning, has a more relevant play in our economy and our industry than it ever has before. Breakdown for people that maybe haven't followed in the business community, what you've built here, where we're sitting, and just where you see it going. So six years ago, Butler Tech had an idea that there was interest in the local communities in an aviation pathway. Yeah. And we didn't have access uh at the time to an airplane. We didn't have access to a school like this. So we launched our aviation pathway. It was a brand new program. We reached out to the city of Middletown and the airport here. And they had basically a portion of one of their hangars was unused. And so we were able to invest some really small capital dollars and convert it to a classroom. And in that 2018-19 school year, we launched our aviation pathway with one teacher, 25 students, and it's a mile from here on the other end of the runway where we're sitting at right now. Think of it like a one-room schoolhouse. Yeah. So we have our main campuses. Like in Alaska or something. Literally. That's what I'm picturing right now. I'm sure that's what our instructor felt like. the instructor and those students. They weren't part of the main campus. They're their own little satellite location that we had to bus kids out here. But the instructor at the time, who's still our lead aviation instructor, shout outs to Rich Packer, he's still here. He had this idea that in order to get kids to understand the full aviation experience and the full aviation community, you had to have it happen at the airport. Right. Or the runway or some vicinity close by. six years ago, we had this aviation classroom, one room schoolhouse. And over the last six years, every single year, the interest in the student base from our surrounding communities continues to grow, continues to grow, continues to grow. So about two years ago, three years ago, we submitted a couple grant applications and we were fortunate from the Butler County Commissioners to receive a chunk of funding that allowed us to build the facility that we're sitting in today, which just opened formally about two or three weeks ago. Wow. and the ribbon cutting's coming up here in the middle of March. I saw that. When you think about growth for this, what are some of your future plans that you're thinking about that kind of falls with that outside the box personality you're bringing to the table? So, Buller Tech's ah mission of transforming lives has a couple strategic arms or a couple strategic goals. And probably the most important of those goals is to reach the greatest number of students. So, there's a... Over the last seven or eight years, we're probably turning away over thousand students a year. Not because we want to, because we're out of space. Right. So years ago, three or four years ago, we were out of space. We had to build a new aviation school that we're sitting in. We had to build a new bioscience center. We had to build a new advanced manufacturing hub. And that's how we are now expanding a couple hundred kids in each of these locations. Right. We're still turning away a thousand kids. Yeah. And so there's this funder. How many kids do you have then, like total? So. The easiest way to qualify that is on a daily basis, Butler Tech engages with 18,000 students between grades seven through 12. What that means is we have about 2,000 full-time students at our campuses that we control and own. We have another 16,000 students in our satellite programs and those students may only access Butler Tech for one bell a day. Wow. And so we believe whether it's one bell a day or whether it's your entire day, whatever the student chooses to do, the student should have access to be able to achieve that particular outcome. On the adult ed side, we serve another 22 or 23,000 students a day. Excuse me, per year. So if you take the 18,000 secondary students, the 23,000 adult education students, we're hovering somewhere around like 41, 42,000 people in the Butler County communities that we serve on an annual basis. My gosh, that's such an impact. It's a massive impact. I don't know that even when I started at Butler Tech some years ago, that I or many people on the team realized how significant our reach was. Yeah. And I appreciate you asking the question because it's an opportunity for me to validate the work that our school board does. It's incredible. The work that our teachers do, the work that our program designers do, the work that our administrators do. We believe that if you have access to CareerTech programs, some level or some capacity, it's going to change your life. As I think about AI, where we're going, I've heard really like dystopian views on AI when I listen to companies in tech, some dystopian views I would say over the next 10 to 20 years. Especially when we talk about education. But when I think about this, this is where I feel like you flip the model. So a school like this, where we're actually preparing for workforce development, this is exactly the need in the pipeline for the future. Maybe the easiest way to dialogue around workforce and talent pipelines is one, by physically situating the school on the runway. Like literally there's planes out there while we're having this interview, this podcast. One that signals to the students, your location in the world matters. The physical place where you go to get your education matters. And for young people, they're used to going to school in some other location and hearing about what the workplace is. Whereas here they get to see it happening real time in front of them. So that's the immediate connection. Yeah, I love it. The second and third levels of opportunity is because students get to start here in grade 10 ah and then by their 12th grade year, a couple of opportunities happen. By the end of their senior year, there's a chunk of students or a portion of students that have the right industry credentials and they can go immediately into the workforce. Nice. And there is dozens of employers. within a one hour and a two hour radius from the greater Cincinnati area that make this particular region one of the most condensed regions in the country for jobs in aviation. I'll talk about that more in a couple minutes. But students that at the end of their high school career, even though they have these industry recognized credentials, if they want to go to college, we have some of the most advanced flight schools surrounding us also within a one and two hour radius. So the students that want to go to higher ed can, the students that want to go right into the workforce can, and in students anywhere in between, there's so many jobs that it's not going to be a problem for young people based on industry and labor market projections. What would you say to CEOs about this program, this platform, versus like this traditional route that so many have gone through, so many have followed? The first thing I would tell any CEO is come hang out with us for at least 30 minutes. From the time you walk in through the door, Students are going to greet you. Students are going to be responsible to give tours to CEOs. And we have an expectation at Butler Tech and all of our campuses that students are leading experiences for visitors like CEOs. And how that's important or why that's important, we don't just want our students to be the mechanic. We want our students to believe that they can run the entire hangar. And whatever that student chooses to do, like we believe our kids are capable of having conversations with CEOs. And we're here to prove that to CEOs, right? Yeah. The second thing that you asked about is what are these three niches or these three pathways? So navigating the aviation industry along with curriculum is tricky. I'm learning about it as... It sounds like it. You and I had a conversation here before and I was like, oh, I didn't even think about that aspect. Navigating the compliance measures and the requirements of the FAA require an extra layer of building your school's curriculum. It's not just doing what the state says, you also have to run your frameworks through the FAA. In short, students that come here all get a similar experience in their sophomore year or their first year with us. And as they progress through their junior and senior year, they start to personalize what their pathway choices are. So students can do the A &P mechanic pathway. They can do the private pilot, which could lead to actually a traditional private pilot license or even drone licensing. Or students can go aerospace engineering. So there's three different pathways that students can end up at the conclusion of their journey here. And each of those pathways have different industry certificates or credentials that students can earn. And again, the students that want to go to college can go on to college. When I think of you and think outside the box, I was reading about this whole, you know, the normal five days, you know, school week that we all think about that you essentially, ah you know, as a kinesthetic learner, I would say you go to jail and you sit in jail and you're just sure. in jail for the traditional model, right? But here, like on the fifth day, you get to operationalize, it sounds like. You get to, if you're talking about like innovating a business, you can work on that. You can't, right? It sounds like you guys are more flexible for the learner that maybe wants to execute and test, which sounded so interesting to me versus like this very normal model where it's just sit. and listen. So there's a lot of layers in the question. Yeah. Maybe one or two simple ways I can start to unpack it is one, just the physical design of this building. So most of our labs, all of these labs in front of me and behind me, they all have garage doors that lead outside. Yeah. Just signaling the students that we want you to have fresh air. We want you to build, design, and fabricate, and have the freedom to move outside of classrooms is one that's just. uh a beginning signal that we want your classroom experience to feel differently. Yeah, I'm on board for that. Two is while in an aviation setting there is a ton of testing, there's also a lot of authentic hands-on based learning that's happening here. So one of the projects that Rich Packer and our instructors are taking on here is there's a build a plane project. And so the build a plane project is when students literally are purchasing a kit And over the scope of the entire year, they are building an airplane from ground zero to 100 % completely complete. Is it like a single engine type thing? Like how big are these planes as I'm trying to think about it? It's small enough to fit where we're sitting. So it is a small single engine plane. It has to get approved and vetted to be airworthy by the FAA. But eventually that airplane, when it's completely built and fabricated and designed by the students, we're going to fly it. And so every year, the incoming class that comes in oh as a cohort of students, every year the incoming cohort will design and build their own airplane and fabricate that. Yesterday I walked in here and two students had passed their private written uh exam, which was a big celebration. Today when you guys were setting up and I walked back in to check in with the team, one of those same two students just took his first solo flight this morning. And so that was a big deal. within 24 hours the kid passed his private written exam. Today he was doing his solo flight. And so yeah, some of the kids are going to end up being pilots for corporate airline companies. Right. We always ask, how do you start your day? Are you that morning person, that night person? What kind of person are you? Every morning is the same for me, Monday through Friday. It's alarm clock goes off at 4, 4.03 and 4.05, and I'm out of bed by 4.05. Out the door at 4.30 and I'm at the gym every day at 5 a.m. What's your routine though? Like where are you going? know? So uh my drive to work is about 35-40 minutes long. I stop at Planet Fitness in Liberty halfway there. Yeah, do you? I do. So I'm there every morning faithfully in there at 5 a.m. and I work out from 5 to 6 15, 5 to 6 30. What's your regimen though? Are you lifting heavy? Are you doing some cardio? So in the last six months of my life, I finally got back into like pretty heavy lifting. Yeah. I might not look like it. Yeah, I was, it in. I literally kept it in. can slang these weights. So usually two or three days a week, lifting heavy. And then two or three days a week, hard cardio. I try to do like a mixed bag to what's it called? Like a hip? Hybrid athlete. To be the hybrid athlete. Yeah, that's what they say you need. In the last year, I've successfully reached my max on bench at 225. four times. I successfully ran a half marathon this year uh and I successfully biked 45 miles all in last six months. Okay, I love that. I've never done those three things in the prior 45 years of my life. Wow, so you're like, it's a new, it's a new page. It's either the midlife crisis or you're turning a new page. At some point when you're in your mid 40s, you realize if you don't get control of your health, you you do. It's going to be rough going into your late 40s and early 50s. You have to get control of it. Yeah. And you want to not lose, you know, your muscle mass. I could run a side podcast besides on CEOs on health. So I love to hear that. So then I would like to say that I will race any CEO out here on this runway if anybody wants to compete. You will literally I'll do a hundred yard dash, whoever you line up. No, let's do like a six mile loop, you know, then I've got you. You might have me on the dash. I don't know that I have that in me. Yeah, I'm a 12 minute mile, so that six mile loop is going to be rough. You know, as you think about your Spotify raps. Yeah. What's in your Spotify raps? Like what are, if we were to get to know you, how would I know you by your raps? Sure. So there's there's the office playlist and then there's the on the way to work playlist, huh? I want to hear the on the way and then there's the gym playlist I want to hear the gym and the on the work on the way to work. So when I'm at the gym I actually use this app called fit radio. Yeah, and fit radio is they're all 60 minute mix tapes And so I typically stream nothing but hip-hop music like hard-hitting hip-hop at the gym Yeah for 60 minutes and I love fit radio On my way to work, it's usually J. Cole, it's usually Jay-Z, it's usually some type of conscious hip-hop. ah And then when I'm at the office, it's usually some type of really grungy blues, really low-fi hip-hop, things where there's less cognitive interference but still creates a really chill vibe in your office. eh I always have music on wherever I go. Do you? Okay, so you love it. At all times. Are you a podcast person? Like, do you live and breathe? I mean, like, literally, all I do is listen to podcasts. As I'm sleeping, I'm like, falling asleep to a podcast. Like, do you do that? Or is it more music? I'm definitely way more music than I am podcasts. I've been in more audio books than I am podcasts. Yeah. So what do you what are you listening to right now? Somebody just got me here to Brene Brown's Stronger Groundwork. Yes. And look at that. Right. Right. Right. So I never would have expected that. Me neither. That's the thing is when I heard people always listening to Brene Brown, it just didn't pique my interest. And a friend of mine uh shot me a text message and was like, this chapter from this book feels like this is your personality. So I downloaded the audio book. Yeah. Started streaming it. Yeah. And got caught up in her particular audio book. So you get that. I get Beth from Yellowstone. I want that chapter. know. So the. Probably the two audio books that I've been digging into, one is The Stronger Ground by Brene Brown and then Culture Code was before that. Which is really about what do great organizations do to facilitate intentional moves and practices that create strong cultures in their organizations. And I'm super blessed to have arrived at an organization with a strong culture. Yeah. Even more blessed that the former... The ethos is good. Like when I think about the Butler Tech ethos, I'm like, you guys have it going on between like the brand, like all the press lately and the fact that AI is on the front and you're like, it's the people questions and answers like it more than more than the programs. Like this building, a lot of people would drive by and see this building and think, brother tech has it going on because of this building. It looks great. It looks contemporary. It looks cool. Kids want to be here. It's really about how great the people are that work inside it. From the time you come here, the secretary is amazing. The teachers are world-class teachers. Our principal's a rock star. The custodian is a rock star. And I think that something I'm proud of following is the hiring of great people and learning how to keep developing them from the other great people in the organization. I've heard it said a million times, but the most important thing any organization can do is hire the right people. The second most important thing they can do is develop them. Like with thinking about that, are you a big strategic planner? Like, do you love strategic planning? Yeah, so I've learned how to control my degree of my brain that wants to innovate to the far right sometimes. Yeah. And then how to more uh strategically plan. Finding that balance with your team is important. So we have a great strategic plan at Butler Tech. That plan is about opening new campuses, expanding satellite opportunities, how do we reach the greatest number of kids. But sometimes our organization also recognizes not everything's planned. And sometimes you got to follow the sunlight and sometimes you got to follow the water. And wherever the seeds grow, that's where you go. Some of the best decisions that we've made in our organization were things that we didn't plan. Like getting a big engine from Ohio State, right? Yeah, well, that came in email 24 hours ago, but that was more of having the right relationship in place, right? So shout outs to our colleague from ATSG, which is at the Wilmington Airport, for helping us facilitate the donation of a jet engine from. formerly GE that's at Ohio State, it's going to be coming here in the next week or so. It sounds like you're a change agent for the good. And I would consider myself a change agent as well. So I like talking to you about bringing people along. You have a lot of people here that you're helping lead. How do you bring people along with either strategy, any changes that get rolled out? Change isn't easy for everyone. You and I, we like change, but not everybody likes change. Walk me through that as leader, because I know it's not always easy. One of the best reflections I have around being effective at creating change is maintaining the ability to be humble, which comes with taking some hardcore feedback from the people on your team that sometimes may not understand where your brain is headed. In order to really unpack what your vision is, they need an opportunity to... critique you, to give you hard feedback. So the first thing is just being extremely humble. Yeah. I think when I arrived at Butler Tech, there were some things that I tried to change through force, through consistency or persistence. And sometimes those things backfire. I think the obvious leadership lessons that are so simple and so profound is soliciting the voice of your people that you lead is the most important thing. being patient, not being unwilling to take hard feedback. And I think when the people that you lead see you putting yourself out there to be critiqued around a particular task or a vision or an initiative, they feel like it's a more authentic opportunity. And I also know that ah the smartest people in the organization are the people on the front lines. And so the more I surround myself with... great teachers to give feedback and coaching around things that we're trying to do at Butler Tech. The more return on investment those ideas seem to have. Accountability is huge. I think that's like a learned lesson as we all age, right? To be accountable for your actions 100%. That's a part of being a good leader. It's hard because whether you're receiving accountability or you're giving it because sometimes to people accountability feels like punishment if they're not used to it. Yeah. And so figuring out what authentic accountability is and how that's going to move your organization is a hard thing to experience, right? So, it's in schools when you're dealing with kids and the community and strategic initiatives and there's this mixed bag of administrators and teachers and custodians, Parents and all the things. Accountability is hard, not because it's rocket science as I say that in our aerospace high school, but because it involves courage more than it involves... Strategy, right? So right the hard part of accountability is being able to own it and keep growing and keep going and growing from it on a regular basis and if there's one thing I've learned from leaders along the way that have been influential to me is just stay the course like listen take feedback Use the feedback to reshape the strategy, but you don't have to deviate from the visions now so you feel like you're your best best self as like a visionary at this school versus kind of what the typical standardized, you know, versus I would say the normal playbook to like now what you're creating. This feels so innovative to me, I guess is what I'm trying to say. I feel like you must really shine in this format. I feel comfortable in this format because of the culture that was established before me getting here. Yeah. And what I mean by that is see he's being humble, everyone. That's the humble. Keep going. Absolutely. I know. love it. Absolutely. Because yeah. I'm not responsible for where we're sitting. There was a team of people that were intelligent enough to put together some strategies to get this building designed, to get this expansion project. I was one of those people. But I'd be foolish to act like I'm doing this work without the help of an entire team of geniuses that I'm around. So, FatherTech allows me to talk and approach education. and see things from a non-traditional perspective. Sure. Our school board has embraced it. Our thought leaders have embraced it. And I'd say on the front lines, our teachers are taking more risks in classroom, classrooms every day than probably the average classroom a teacher is taking. But we've cultivated a space where we want them to take risks. Yeah. We're trying to... allow them to feel safe and comfortable to do things differently in classroom spaces. And sometimes doing things in the traditional way is what needs to happen. But when our teachers want to take risks, we want them to feel safe and motivated and not that they're going to be chastised if they fail at something. Like we want them to fail and to feel safe failing and know that they can be resilient with kids. Yeah, it's the best learning is failure. I mean, I'm sure we both could. I have a long laundry list of how we end up where we are. My laundry list of failures in my professional career far outweighs my successes right Right, right. But I do think it shapes all of us to be better humans when you have that long list of failures. So I neglected to ask you this one question. Where did you grow up? Did you grow up in Cincinnati? I did. Born and raised. Shout outs to all my people in Mount Healthy. That's what I was going to ask. Absolutely. from Mount Healthy High School. that time when I was at Mount Healthy, I was able, I was fortunate through my family background to move to Hawaii and spend a year living in Hawaii and going to high school there for one year on the island of Oahu. Did you really? And then when I came back, we moved back into the exact same house and finished my high school career at Mount Healthy. That's so crazy. my college career was fragmented. went to Olivette Nazarene University. I went to University of Cincinnati. I went to uh Kankakee Community Technical College when I was also near the Chicago area. I finally landed at Northern Kentucky University. Shout out to NKU. NKU saved my life. ah It gave me structure and organization and discipline. where I completed my teaching degree at. Really? And then went on to get advanced degrees from Xavier in Miami. So I think I was kicked out of UC. Yeah, Pathway. know, failures. I was successful at NKU, Xavier in Miami. I've successfully gone to all Cincinnati-based institutions. You know, and I really do have this theory after talking to all these CEOs is that so many times the CEOs were the C students or below, right? And they tested all the boundaries. And because of that, they can take hard feedback. Because of that, when life throws them a failure, they get right back up. It builds this grit and resiliency, which now I for sure see in you, the grit and resiliency. And the thing is, you age, you learn that not everyone has that. Maybe because life was, they always got A's or they always did X, Y, Z, but to those that are pushing the boundaries and getting feedback, it makes us more, you know, able to take. The negative feedback from all parties. I mean, there's some key experiences, I think, growing up that my parents put me in mainly around sports. played soccer growing up, basketball growing up, floated in and out of some other sports. ah In particular, ah if you get in the right sports team or the right sports culture, it gives you a sense of team commitment and development and failure and success. Like I spent two years on our varsity basketball team at Mount Healthy. I think I saw the court. for a total of 90 seconds in two years. I had to sit the bench on a really elite team of basketball players. But the fact that I made the team with how rich the talent pool was in the late 90s at Mount Healthy is a success in itself. And what I learned is this just constant relentless pursuit of putting in the work no matter what the outcome is. And going through experiences like that, certainly... allow you to wrestle with success and failure later in life. Yeah, it does. And I do believe in athletics. I mean, no matter what it is, right, if you're on a team, you're learning how to lose. You're learning how to win. You're learning what work looks like. You're learning what hard work. Yeah, it really is. It's hard work. And there will be days you cry. You know, my child, I have a 10 year old on the swim team right now. And some days she comes home, oh, it was so hard. wanted to get out, I was crying, and I'm like, this is building character, I'm glad you stayed in, I'm glad you cried in the water, but still pushed off, right? So we ask everyone, you know, what's in your bug out bag, right? If the world is ending, right, apocalyptic, ah and it's not your family, it's not your dog, you know, we're not talking about Foofy over here, we're asking, what would you bring in your backpack? I mean, we've heard... off the wall answers, I'll say, and we've had like very practical answers. So I kind of want to hear where you fall, okay? The world is ending, you're grabbing a bag, what's in it? First of all, there's definitely two pickleball paddles in there. Like, I'm going to war with somebody on a pickleball court. If I have to be on a stranded island, I'm definitely going with two pickleball paddles. I've picked up pickleball ah pretty significantly in the last couple years of my life. It's a great sport. I love the pace of it. I love the feel of it. It's great to be active at this stage in my life through Pickleball. The second thing ah I would take is, of course, my music collection, whether that's digital or vinyls, whatever you want, however you want to qualify it. I ah thrive on music. And so something that's super important to me is Pickleball. Something that's super important to me is music. And I'd probably say the last thing is probably some type of blank journal. just the ability to reflect and write and capture. Is it practice I need to do more of? I find myself doing it inconsistently sometimes, but whenever I do it, it usually is coming from a space of gratitude. And so I find myself thanking people or reflecting on people that have helped me or I've seen people or I've noticed people just do significant things for kids in schools. Those three things, some form of a journal to express gratitude, my music collection. and two pickleball paddles. And if I'm going to bring two pickleball paddles, I got to have a headband. Oh, do you? Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, you still have hair, so this is good. Full headband status when you're playing pickleball. Yeah, that's awesome. Good to hear it. So, you know, you and I were sitting here and as we leave our listeners today, is there something that we didn't talk about that you want to highlight? Yeah. There's a lot of streams of funding that provided support for this particular project. We're super grateful for the Butler County Commissioners, Commissioners Rogers, Dixon and Carpenter, made a very thoughtful decision to provide a chunk of funding to make this particular building come to life, the city of Middletown, for their investment in this particular project. ah There's a series of companies and other elected officials. uh They know who they are in the Butler County area that have all played an influential role in investing in the creation of this particular space and really Butler Tech's other expansion projects. Right. And so those Butler County elected officials and the county commissioners and our key business partners, Butler Tech doesn't exist in the capacity that we're in right now if we don't have the relationships with those particular agencies. Right. I'd also shout out um Our school board over the last five years has been tremendous group of leaders. And my predecessor, John Graft, is somebody that I know that I'm standing on the shoulders of people that have came before me. So I'm super clear of the work and the foundation and the structure that he's laid before me. And I'm thankful for his leadership and coaching to allow me to be in the role that I'm in. You know, when you grow up listening to 90s hip hop, and then you get in front of a podium. you're inclined to give shout outs, right? Like, so this is what I'm doing right now. This is how I show gratitude is just giving shout outs to the people that made these places and spaces possible. And I mentioned him at the beginning of the podcast, but I need to give him uh due due diligence is Rich Packer. Rich Packer is the lead aviation teacher at this site. He's the teacher that we asked to start the one room schoolhouse six or seven years ago. And there's a whole team of people that surrounded him. From our current principal, Adam Snoddy, to Kristen Abedakar, the assistant superintendent, to Ms. Riggin, the building sub that had 35 years of teaching experience that was coaching him as a substitute teacher along the way. There's people that have invested in him, but because of his persistence, a one-room schoolhouse is now an entire aviation campus. And the entire community is going to benefit from it. So I just want to make sure I give shout outs to him. ah John Graff's vision and Rich Packer's work ethic. have been two of the key ingredients of how we got here today. I love it. Thank you for being on and thanks for sitting down with us today. Appreciate the vibes. Thank you.