TRAVERSE CITY — An expanded airplane hangar will elevate Northwestern Michigan College’s Aviation Division’s efforts to feed more flight specialists into the rapidly evolving and expanding airline industry.
NMC officials and community leaders will formally cut the ribbon next week for its expanded aviation hangar along Aero Park Drive that will enable the college to significantly grow its aviation program creating more locally trained pilots, mechanics and flight instructors.
The ceremony is set for Monday, Sept. 15, starting at 1 p.m.
“The building served us very well for several decades, but we got to the point where we simply outgrew it,” said Alex Boyle, director of aviation at NMC. “At the same time we were seeing historical demand for the program — not just from students, but from the industry.”
The hangar, located next to the college’s Parsons-Stulen Building as part of its Aero Park Campus, was expanded by 16,500 square feet, providing space for NMC to add eight new planes to its fleet of 19 total aircraft that includes a sea plane and an aerobatics plane.
The hangar was more than doubled in size to 33,530 square feet. The total project cost for the expanded hangar is $7 million. NMC matched a $3.75 million state grant that went toward the project. It also received $550,000 in federal funding which underscored the strong legislative support for the program, Bloye said.
“Our local legislators — from both sides — invested in this program,” Bloye said. “It was refreshing to see our legislators dive into this program — that was a cool thing.”
Construction on the hangar expansion began last October and work crews were putting the finishing touches on the project last week. Miller Davis based in Kalamazoo was the general constructor, and local architect Ray Kendra designed the expansion. Cunningham-Limp oversaw the project for the college.
The expanded hangar is the first project in NMC’s updated 10-year campus master plan — called NMC Thrive — and is the first structure to feature the college’s updated logo.
“The aviation hangar is reflective of so much going on right now,” NMC Board of Trustee Chair Laura Oblinger said. “It’s really watching some big ideas coming together.”
Oblinger said the growth of the college’s aviation program, including its burgeoning unmanned aerial systems (drones), are areas where the college is taking a leadership role in staying on top of the rapid growth and change in the airline industry.
NMC is the only two-year college in Michigan to offer an aviation program, and the hangar addition will accommodate a 66 percent expansion in the number of students it can serve. The program used to enroll 30 new students a year and typically had a two-year waiting list, but the expansion will allow the college to bring in 50 new students this fall.
“When I walk through that building I see a lot of great planning and thought-provoking activity coming into play,” Oblinger said. “It’s one of the distinctive programs that really sets us apart … it’s really watching big ideas coming to fruition.”
Decades of Flight Instruction
NMC’s aviation program dates to the late 1960s. Bob Buttleman, who died in 2024, was the program’s founding director and ran it for 35 years.
“Bob brought modern aviation to NMC,” said Bloye, who described the original hangar building as “the house that Bob built.”
“It’s an important piece — there’s history to that building,” Bloye said. The college took over occupancy of the hangar in 1978 — prior to development of the Parsons-Stulen facility — which saw the first growth spurt of the college’s aviation program. The hangar housed the entire flight program — including classrooms, offices and the flight simulators — before those facilities were relocated after the Parsons-Stulen building opened in 1999.
Aaron Cook, who studied with Bloye under Buttleman, was the second director and Bloye took over the program in 2015. Within two years, several factors led to what Bloye described as “a perfect storm of demand” for aviation school graduates.
Those included a surge in retirements in the airline industry — which escalated again during the COVID-19 pandemic — and an increase in global connectivity among the airlines as more travelers took to the skies for national and international travel.
“There was more and more demand in air travel throughout the world,” Bloye said, along with additional regulatory requirements for training pilots. “Those three things combined created this historic pilot shortage…we instantly recognized it, and ever since 2017 we’ve had a wait list to get into the program.”
Bloye said administrators soon realized they needed more aircraft — and more space to store them — to continue growing the program.
“With a hangar that was already full, it was a pretty easy decision to make of seeing this vision of growing out the hangar and renovating it, and being able to serve more students,” he said.
Officials at neighboring Cherry Capital Airport in Traverse City said the expansion of NMC’s Aviation Program is well-timed given the personnel challenges facing the airline industry.
“The industry needs more pilots, it needs more mechanics and it needs more instructors,” said Autumn MacClaren, TVC’s director of air service development and marketing. “Airlines in some communities are having to pull back their operations because of some of these shortages … colleges like this are so important to what we do as an airport.”
The department has grown to include 55 to 60 full and part-time employees, including 35 to 40 flight instructors, along with maintenance staff and program administrators.
Its annual operating budget is around $3 million. Bloye said the new hangar facility is part of several facility upgrades that will be pursued under the college’s master plan over the coming months and years.
Those upgrades will include the relocation of the department’s administrative offices to the rear of the Parsons-Stulen building to improve access to the new hangar.
“It’s not just about square footage — we’re taking this opportunity to revamp the program,” Bloye said. “How can we not only welcome more students, but how we can get more students through at a better pace, at a better pass rate, and have better outcomes all around?”
The department is hiring new flight instructors, a recruiter for the program and will add a ramp supervisor/operations specialist.
The department has split its aviation fleet to launch aircraft every hour, to create more flying opportunities for students and better accommodate their classroom schedules.
The department also plans to upgrade its flight simulation technology and the program’s software systems, he said.
“Everything in the operation is on the table to be reviewed, upgraded and modernized,” Bloye said.