Burgard Vocational High School - Craftsman Yearbook (Buffalo, NY)

Page 12 text:

The story of Burgard s Avlatlon Department ns a hlstory of highest qualnty traumng and expert mechanlcal craftsman s up lt was an September of 1928 that the Avaatuon Depart ment had nts humble begmnmg with one mstructor Mr Alvm Lunes The shop equlpment at that tame consisted of an Orlole fuselage wnth a Curtnss OX 5 power plant ln 1929 the Avuatnon Department moved to the attlc of old Elm Vo cahonal and under the dnrectlon of Mr Make Steffan the first Department Chanrman In 1930 the Avlahon Department along with the rest of the school moved to the new buuldmg whnch ns now known as Burgard Vocatlonal Hugh School Here the course was ex panded to Include many new phases of avuatnon work ln 1940 the Defense Tralmng Program was started and the Avuatuon Department was put on a twenty four hour basls lt was also In 1940 that school 3355 was opened as an Avsatlon Annex 8 AVIATICN

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MECHANICS At the present tume Burgard has a large faculty who are well acquannted wnth the fleld of automohve mechanics ln 1955 Mr Doebert left hns posntuon as head of the de partment to orgamze and coordmate the Dnver Trammg Program for the secondary schools of the clty Mr Thomas Chad the dean of the automotnve faculty was ap pomted as the new department chaarman To day Burgard stands on the threshold of Amerlcas largest lndustry as the leadmg school of Its type and wnth the constant de mand of the lndustry for our graduates and the mcreased spnrnt of the student body for proper trammg and school ochvmes Burgard wnll reach the peak of nts long and magmfl cent history XQYQ

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ln 1943 Burgard Vocatuonal Hugh School was certufied as a CAA approved school Thus made ut possuble for our stu 'C milf' 5 dents to receuve theur aurcraft and powerplant lucense after only one year of addutuonal study beyond the four year course Thus fifth year of preparatuon was added to the Burgard curruculum In 1953 Mr Steffan stepped down from the Chairman shup of the Avuatuon Department and was very ably re placed by Mr Alva Henderson After Mr Hendersons un tumely death un 1955 Mr Gregory Ductor took over as head of the Avuatuon Department The Avuatuon Department has grown consuderably sunce its inception at Old Elm. Today every phase of aviation is taught and few schools in the world could boast of full size flyable aircraft in their classrooms. From the history making Flying Tiger through the Bell Helicopter to the full size iet powerplants Burgard leads the way in the train- ing of the aviation workers of the future. From the faculty viewpoint probably no school in the world can equal Bur- gard in quality instruction. All Burgards teachers are li- censed aircraft mechanics. Both Mr. Ductor and Mr. Farch- min are licensed CAA examiners. Many of our teachers are pilots both private and instruction and Mr. Catalano is well known as a parachute rigger and iumper. Students of our Aviation Classes have gone into many im- portant positions in the industry not only in this area but throughout the entire world and there is little that goes on in aviation that somehow is not reflected at Burgard 9