Laughlin Air Force Base expands career training partnership with CISD

Laughlin Air Force Base has expanded its long-running workforce pipeline with San Felipe Del Rio Consolidated Independent School District, opening new hands-on training in HVAC and electrical work for local juniors and seniors who want a path into trades without leaving Val Verde County.

The April 15 expansion adds new collaboration with Chugach Government Solutions and the HVAC and electrical units inside the 47th Civil Engineer Squadron, extending a program that already put students near aircraft maintenance, flight line management, scheduling and planning. For families looking for a practical payoff from high school CTE, the message is straightforward: the base is offering teenagers direct exposure to the skills and workplace standards that matter in military and civilian technical jobs.

Janette Gomez, Laughlin’s school liaison program manager, said the Maintenance Grow Your Own Program has been established for the last 50 years. That history matters in Del Rio because it shows the partnership is not a one-off outreach effort. A 2022 DVIDS story said Grow Your Own has brought more than 300 maintainers into the 47th Maintenance Directorate over its 30-year history, making it one of the base’s clearest workforce pipelines.

The program’s reach has also been visible to students for years. During a May 1, 2023 base tour, SFDR-CISD CTE students watched employees at work and learned firsthand about aircraft maintenance, flight line management and related skills. At the time, the district’s CTE program offered 14 courses, giving students multiple entry points into technical careers.

Laughlin has also begun recognizing student achievement more publicly. The base created the Rising Eagle award in 2024 for standout CTE students, and the first recipients were senior Christi Colunga and junior Alfredo Garcia, honored during the wing’s annual awards ceremony on March 14, 2025. That kind of recognition signals that the base sees students not just as visitors, but as future workers.

The new civil engineering side of the partnership is especially relevant for local job prospects. Laughlin says the 47th Civil Engineer Squadron is responsible for 808 facilities and infrastructure assets across 5,343 acres at four geographically separated locations valued at $2.1 billion. That scale helps explain why HVAC and electrical training matter so much: the base needs technicians who understand how to keep a large, complex installation running.

For Del Rio parents, the answer is yes, the program offers a real career edge. It gives students exposure to base standards, technical work and career pathways tied to one of the region’s biggest employers, while keeping that training rooted in Val Verde County.