Sanford Shines at Maine ACE Camp

ACE Campers learn hands-on about aircraft mechanics at Southern Maine Aviation.

Photo: Maine ACE Camp

By Zendelle Bouchard

Maine ACE Camp, which last month brought 10 kids aged 12-16 from all over the state to Sanford Seacoast Regional Airport (SFM), provided an opportunity for local businesses and individuals to shine as they introduced the campers to many different careers in the aviation industry. ACE stands for Aviation Career Education.

Tim LeSiege, Maine ACE Camp’s interim director, presented a report on this year’s camp to the City Council at its Sept. 3 meeting. He said while most of the kids come to camp interested in becoming pilots, the camp exposes them to a wide variety of jobs in the field, including mechanics, engineering, aircraft rescue and firefighting. There will be millions of job openings in aviation and related fields in the coming years, he said, providing great opportunities for young people right here in Sanford and southern Maine.

One of the highlights of the Seacoast ACE Camp is helicopters. LeSiege credited Parker Montano, owner of Pine Tree Helicopters, with bringing ACE Camp to Sanford. Montano is a former ACE camper himself and credits his career to the ACE Camp he attended in Portland as a teen. Pine Tree Helicopters runs a flight school as well as offering scenic helicopter rides and an air taxi service.

LifeFlight of Maine, which has a branch at the airport, provided the kids with the opportunity to climb into one of its helicopters, sit behind the stick and talk to the professionals who fly and maintain them.

At Southern Maine Aviation, the kids learned about sheet metal riveting and other facets of the mechanical side of the business. The company provided a hangar for ACE Camp to use as a base of operations for the campers. Rob Montgomery talked to the students about weather and about jobs in that field.

Campers met with officers from Sanford’s branch of the Civil Air Patrol and learned about the many aviation-related opportunities that organization offers.

Allison Navia, the airport’s director, talked to campers about what it takes to manage an airport. They were able to ride along with the truck drivers and check out the fleet of snow removal equipment.

Sanford resident Ed Cormier, who works as the STEM Advisor for the Federal Aviation Administration, brought drones and flight simulators. Officers from York County Emergency Management introduced campers to the way drone technology is used in emergency situations and talked about available careers.

From Adam Cutler of Gale Associates, a national company that has done design and construction projects at SFM, they learned about aviation engineering.

The kids also took a field trip to the Portland Jetport, where they met with the airport director and learned about aircraft rescue and firefighting. Campers got a glimpse behind the scenes of Transportation Safety Administration operations at a passenger airport. On another trip, to the Portsmouth International Airport, they met with folks from PlaneSense and learned about fractional ownership of aircraft. They also met with members of the U.S. Air National Guard and toured a refueling jet.

Maine ACE Camp is a federally registered nonprofit organization cosponsored by the FAA. In addition to the Seacoast camp, it operates a midcoast four-day camp in Brunswick each year as well as a weeklong overnight camp in Eddington for high schoolers. Learn more at https://www.maineacecamp.org/.