MIKE MARTIN
GKN Aerospace is demonstrating that it is young at heart - adopting a "youth first" policy on its stand at Le Bourget.
Visitors to the stand are finding they are likely to be talking aerospace with young professionals in the first instance, before being passed on to senior representatives.
The policy has a serious purpose. The idea is to give young people first-hand experience in how the industry works together and to broaden horizons at an age when most staff are working away back at base.
The idea was first tried out at Farnborough as part of the UK industry's Careers in Aerospace campaign. That campaign is aimed at raising the profile of the industry with young people and addressing the long-term engineering skills shortage in aerospace.
"It was very successful so we thought we would repeat the exercise," says Pete Swallow, who organised the six-strong team for Paris.
The six came from different GKN Aerospace locations in the UK and at Alabama, USA. Some were nominated for the job while others went through a selection process.
They work in a number of engineering and commercial areas. They were given a day's briefing in London and a further day's briefing in Paris, before having the run of the show on the first public day.
Then it was down to work. Their role is to greet visitors and deal with them before passing them on to senior members of the team.
Says Lucy Newnham, a GKN sponsored undergraduate doing a spell of work experience: "I was really surprised at how big the show is."
The other five are: project team engineer Jodi Tate, production engineer Paul Scullion, project engineer Mike McKee, graduate engineer Adam Heppell and contracts manager Ben Bryson.
Says Swallow: "We hope to do it again next year."
Source: Flight Daily News
