MOSES LAKE - Big Bend Community College will expand its aviation maintenance program by adding to its training in composites technology, the result of a $164,000 grant.

The grant, from the Washington Board for Community and Technical Colleges, will pay for new equipment for the college's composites technology lab, said Clyde Rasmussen, the college's dean of professional and technical programs.

Currently the program includes about three weeks of training in repairing composite materials, said Erik Borg, the program instructor. The expanded lab will allow the addition of new classes and help students learn about manufacturing composites, as well as repairing them, Borg said.

"It expands and adds to (the program), and we're going to be teaching things we never have before," Borg said.

"We're going into more of the manufacturing end of it," he said. Big Bend will be one of nine colleges in the state to provide training in composite material manufacture and maintenance.

Composite materials are fiber-reinforced, high impact resins, used in aerospace construction as well as the automotive and construction industries and shipbuilding, among others. The composites are integrated with and sometimes replace traditional materials.

The money is "mostly for equipment and supplies, with some money for facility updates to meet safety standards and accommodate more students," Rasmussen said.

The classes will focus on aviation applications, but the training "can be used in a lot of different areas," Borg said. Construction should be completed and classes added to the schedule sometime in the 2013-14 school year, he said.

Big Bend has operated an aviation program for more than 40 years and is one of five airframe and power plant maintenance schools in the state. The college is one of the participants in the Air Washington consortium; its members share a $20 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor to promote aerospace education and training programs.