Antelope Valley Lands Federal Job-Training Grant

The Antelope Valley, hard hit by the aerospace cutback at the end of the Cold War, is getting help--a grant of $376,480 in federal job-training funds announced Thursday by Gov. Pete Wilson.

“The business climate has been changing rapidly in the Antelope Valley,” Wilson said in a statement. “By targeting the grant to this community, we’re making an important investment in its laid-off workers and their families, as well as in the continued growth and development of the economy.”

The money will be administered by the Los Angeles County Service Delivery Area, one of 52 such areas in the state eligible for federal job-training funds, as well as Antelope Valley College and the Antelope Valley Job Development Council.

Under the grant’s guidelines, unemployed workers will receive training in industrial fields emerging in the valley, including aerospace, electronics, recreational vehicle manufacturing, printing services, retail, warehousing and auto repair.

The Antelope Valley has long been known as Aviation Alley because of its close relationship with the U.S. space program and aerospace companies such as Lockheed Martin. Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier there, jump-starting the space race in 1947. Space shuttles land at Edwards Air Force Base on the valley’s northern fringe.

In the early 1990s, however, the local economy and identity suffered a severe blow when the aerospace industry hit a downturn. Thousands of jobs were lost and the housing market plunged into a deep depression.

Local government officials report the area is just now starting to recover. Last fall, euphoria greeted NASA’s decision to test its next-generation space shuttle prototype, the X-33, at Edwards. Another big boost came in 1996, when the prototype construction contract was awarded to Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works division in Palmdale.

Lancaster Mayor Frank Roberts applauded Wilson’s acknowledgement of the region’s needs.

“This area has experienced inertia,” he said. “When you move back like we did, you have to move forward.”

The grant represents one of the intial steps in the long road back, Roberts stressed.

“You still have to have jobs to fill,” he said. “You can train all along, but you still have to have jobs at the end.”