Cargo Career Path

By This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it | Corridor Inc. Staff Writer Originally published May 2008 Tanisha Harris completed BWI’s cargo apprentice program and has worked at John S. Connor Inc. full time since August 2006.  Two years ago, Tanisha Harris was a student at Glen Burnie Evening High School and worked at Kmart to pay the bills.  Today, the 23-year-old mother is a full-time employee at John S. Connor Inc., a Glen Burnie-based freight forwarder where she works with customs and trucking companies to move freight around the world.      Thanks to the Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport’s (BWI) Air Cargo Apprenticeship Program, Harris is on a career track in the cargo industry.  “This is my first real job and the apprenticeship was probably the smartest thing I’ve ever done,” she said. “I don’t know what I’d be doing if I hadn’t found the program and it was a free education.”  The six-week program is helping recent Anne Arundel County public school graduates and high school students gain real world experience and filling airport jobs in the air cargo industry.  Cargo workers handle everything from mail and freight to travelers’ bags and boxes, as well as deal with backend operations such as shipment scheduling, tracking systems, managing distribution and customer service.  “The surrounding community doesn’t know that these jobs exist,” said Robert P. Shaffer, manager of cargo development at the Maryland Aviation Administration. “It used to be you had to knock on 150 doors if you wanted a cargo job. We decided to go through the high schools to target future workers and those students choosing not to go to college.”  But companies are struggling to retain cargo workers due to grueling hours and high living costs in the Baltimore-Washington Corridor.  For instance, baggage handlers at BWI start at $10 an hour and sometimes work 70 to 80 hours a week, said Shaffer. Pay scales peak at $24 an hour with the added benefit of free flights. But workers pay the price by enduring the elements and lifting heavy boxes into plane cargo holds.  Southwest Airlines, BWI’s largest carrier with 172 daily flights, is currently about 20 cargo workers short. The airline needs approximately 260 baggage workers and loses anywhere from three to five workers a week, said Jeff Lamb, chief of human resources at Southwest.  High cost of living forces many cargo workers to relocate, leaving BWI constantly filling positions.  “This isn’t an industry problem but an economic issue,” said Doug Burkhardt, president and CEO of the Anne Arundel Workforce Development Corp. “This relates back to the worker shortage across many industries not just cargo. We’re trying to bridge that gap by creating clear career pathways and potentially introducing youth to job experience in a lucrative career.”  There’s plenty of activity at BWI. More than 240 million pounds of freight and over 254 million pounds of cargo left the airport in 2007. There are 1,510 people at BWI that work for various cargo companies and airlines.  BWI’s Air Cargo Apprenticeship Program, which began in 2004, is a partnership with the Maryland Aviation Administration, BWI Development Council, Anne Arundel County Public Schools and Anne Arundel Workforce Development Corp.  As part of the program, each year 15 to 20 students train with cargo employers.  “[Companies] get a test drive and the ability to train young workers to possibly come work for them in the future,” Shaffer said.  Training begins in July and includes 120 service hours. Students are paid $9 an hour and workers’ compensation is paid upfront through a grant from Anne Arundel Workforce Development. Participating employers are invoiced for 50 percent of the wages at the end of the program, said Shaffer.  At the end of the program, many students become full-time employees for the companies they trained with or other BWI cargo employers.   “Most people have a misconception about this business,” said Shaffer. “It’s an invisible business and not something you’re going to see unless you’re here in the wee hours of the night. But it’s a well paying industry — the average salary is $32,000 — and the skills are portable anywhere in the U.S.”  The air cargo industry has evolved into a high tech, logistics business that involves not just heavy lifting but a lot of paperwork, said Shaffer.  “Well-trained cargo industry employees are always in high demand,” said Tim Campbell, executive director of the Maryland Aviation Administration. “When logistics companies, both foreign and domestic, look at possible locations for expansion or new offices around the country one of their prime considerations besides location is trained workforce availability.”

 

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