MONROE — South Piedmont Community College will welcome an aerospace program next semester thanks to a $575,000 grant from the Golden LEAF Foundation.

“Monroe is one of the top aerospace manufacturing centers in the nation,” said Stuart Wasilowski, SPCC’s vice president of Workforce Development and Continuing Education.

Many manufacturers are part of an “aging work force,” he said, and the program will not only provide replacement workers for those who retire but build a skilled labor pool sure to attract companies wanting to relocate. “What they want to know is, ‘Are there people there that can do the jobs we need them to do?’”

Golden LEAF President Dan Gerlach said in a press release that the money was awarded “to connect the aerospace industry’s work-force needs with viable and sustainable job opportunities for North Carolinians.”

Stocking the county with job-ready candidates will bring in more business, meaning more jobs for locals, Wasilowski said. “This grant helps the college produce workers ... that can help the community compete.”

The Golden LEAF Foundation is a nonprofit organization that works to transform North Carolina’s economy by assisting tobacco-dependent, rural and/or economically distressed communities across the state. The organization awarded a total of $4.2 million in aerospace industry work-force grants two weeks ago. SPCC received 13.7 percent of the funding.

“This is a great boost to our employers and current and future students,” SPCC President John McKay said. The aerospace program will incorporate the college’s mechatronics and advanced machining programs and explore other avenues, such as avionics. It will be offered at the Monroe campus around February, McKay said, as soon as the equipment is delivered and set up.

The equipment will train students for aerospace manufacturing by simulating various electronic processes.

“This allows us to make mistakes in a safe and controlled environment,” Wasilowski said, “so the mistakes don’t happen on the manufacturing floor.”

McKay said more training will be offered as the program grows. In the past two years, 230 people have enrolled in SPCC’s mechatronics, or advanced industrial maintenance, program; 150 in the advanced machining, or CNC operation, program.

Of the grant money, Wasilowski said, $520,000 of it will go toward training equipment. The rest will be used to hire a part-time staff member for the next two years.

Mechatronics director Russell Carpenter said local companies like Turbomeca, Goodrich and ATI Allvac partnered with the college to apply for the grant.

The aerospace program will benefit both students and the companies, Wasilowski said; companies can send employees to the school for training and students can learn on the job. Goodrich, for example, could show students how to fix landing gear. Cyril Bath could demonstrate how to stretch aluminum for an airplane’s fuselage.

ATI Allvac safety coordinator Bobby Pegram said his company would be happy to work with students.

With the growing industry, Carpenter hopes aerospace students will find jobs shortly after graduating.