Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Center for professional Education (CPE), provides professional education and training to the aviation, space and aerospace world.
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU), McConnell Center, is one of the more than 120 centers that make up ERAU’s Worldwide Centers. Their office is located on McConnell Air Force Base (AFB) on the southeastern edge of Wichita, Kansas, about three and a half hours southwest of Kansas City and two and a half hours north of Oklahoma City. Both the city and McConnell AFB have a history rich in aviation.
McConnell Center is located in the Education Center on McConnell Air Force Base, in Wichita, KS. The school offers the Associate and Bachelor of Science degrees in Professional Aeronautics and the Master of Aeronautical Science degree. Graduate specializations in Management, Operations and Safety are available.
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University began its history in 1925 when John Paul Riddle and T. Higbee Embry founded the Embry-Riddle Company at Lunken Airport in Cincinnati, Ohio, and then went on the following year to form the Embry-Riddle School of Aviation. 1925 was also the year that Wichita, Kansas, began its affiliation with the aviation industry. That year Walter Beech, Clyde Cessna, and Lloyd Stearman founded the Travel Air Manufacturing Company. Eventually each man went on to establish his own company, Beech Aircraft, Cessna Aircraft and the Stearman Company (which was the predecessor to Boeing of Wichita). With a total of over 700 aviation related manufactures, Wichita reigns as the Air Capital of the World. Wichita is home to such world-class companies as Cessna, Bombardier, Boeing and Raytheon.
Since April of 1954 McConnell AFB has been a part of the Wichita community. The base was named after Wichitans Thomas McConnell and Fred McConnell, two of the three “Flying McConnell Brothers” of World War II. Today McConnell AFB is home to the 22nd Air Refueling Wing, one of only three core KC-135 wings in the Air Force. Other units of the Air Force’s Air Mobility Command as well as the Kansas Air National Guard are located on or near McConnell Air Force Base.
Contact Terri Laurhammer, Center Director of Operations, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Phone (316) 687-3006 DSN 743-4200, FAX (316) 687-3377.
Log on to the website, http://www.erau.edu and click on Extended Campus.