Major economic jet engine for Middle Georgia is hiring again
ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE — In an office a few blocks from the flight line here the other day, a patch of yellow sticky notes, one from an area mayor, one from a local city councilman among others, sat clumped near the phone on Tim Lawrence’s desk.
Lawrence, whose office at Robins Air Force Base’s maintenance depot oversees a largely civilian workforce of 6,500, is in charge of an effort to hire 600 aircraft mechanics, sheet-metal specialists and others with varying levels of aviation backgrounds.
Since word of the hirings emerged in early August, phones and inboxes at the Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex, as Lawrence’s department is known, have been inundated.
“This is from yesterday,” Lawrence said, grabbing the handful of messages on his desk, notes that offered support and to put in the good word for potential employees. “They’re just trying to help. Everybody’s wanting to work together. It’s good community support.”
And as Robins goes, so goes Middle Georgia and beyond. The military base, which employs about 21,500 people, more than two-thirds of them civilians, estimates it pumped $4.48 billion into the state’s economy last year. In 2025, according to base officials, $1.29 billion went to civilian workers on the Robins payroll.
The hiring surge is the base’s largest since 2018, when it hired about 1,200 people over the course of a year. The new jobs follow a couple of years that saw furloughs and hiring freezes and a reduced workforce through early retirements and attrition.
“We weren’t able to hire and we were losing people at the same time,” said Lawrence, who is director of business operations for the Air Logistics Complex. “Now the gates are open. We can hire again.”
Base officials say the job openings are not in response to a stretched-thin American fighting force or any military shortages in the wake of U.S. aerial attacks against Iran. Officials have declined to say what role, directly or indirectly, Robins is playing in the Middle East, other than to say it supports U.S. air power across the globe.
Lawrence said the new hires will bolster a staff that conducts repairs and modifications to more than 100 military aircraft a year.
He described the job openings as supporting roles in the maintenance realm, mainly sheet metal mechanics, aircraft mechanics, electronics mechanics, inspections specialists and logistics professionals. Pay for the openings ranges from about $50,000 a year for newcomers up to about $140,000 for experienced workers.
The Houston County base lies just west of the Ocmulgee River along the southern border of Bibb County. The two counties are Middle Georgia’s largest by far, home to more than 335,000 people. Another 130,000 or so live in other surrounding counties within about 45 minutes of Robins, which has been a key employer since the early 1940s.
Lawrence, 47, a former Marine who grew up in Warner Robins and has worked at the base for 18 years, says that he can be in a grocery store or at a ballgame and have people he doesn’t know ask, “When are y’all gonna hire? When are y’all gonna start hiring again?”
The key to getting hired during this round is being qualified and having at least some training. That said, even if someone isn’t an aircraft mechanic, certain industrial fields can translate.
There is hope, too, that at least some of the 168 people affected by the announced closure last week of the Anchor Glass Container facility next door to Robins can be folded into the base workforce.
“We can put them on a formal training plan to get them up to speed,” Lawrence said, speaking in general of nonaviation workers who might be employable at Robins. “There’s only so many qualified aircraft mechanics. … And once you hire them up, you’ve got to look at things differently.”
In its pursuit of qualified workers, the Robins maintenance depot competes against Delta Air Lines, Lockheed Martin and Gulfstream Aerospace. Lawrence said Robins can be attractive by offering pensions and time off for federal holidays — not to mention a slower pace of life in the more rural midstate.
Lawrence also noted the base’s importance to the Air Force and the allure of patriotism that some civilians, and former enlistees as well, are drawn to.
“A lot of our folks are veterans,” he said. “They were out there wearing the uniform, deployed, out there working on these aircraft. They retired or they just get out. They can come back and be connected to the mission still.”
As he talked, an F-15 on a test flight roared off the runway outside his window.
On a recent afternoon, base worker Isaiah Walker was busy inside the shop where he serves as a powered-support-systems mechanic. He deals with and works on a variety of equipment connected to planes, from generators to air conditioners.
Walker, 48, a Philadelphia native, joined the Air Force in 1996. His wife, who is from nearby Lizella, is a manager in the base’s software-maintenance squadron.
While Walker was a student at Middle Georgia State University around the time a round of military base closures were being considered, he did an academic project on “the huge economic blow” that losing Robins could bring.
He considers himself lucky to work there and appreciates the job security and the pride of supporting the Air Force.
Even if the gig comes with one unwritten duty: Answering the strangers he encounters, who upon learning he works at Robins invariably ask, “You think you can get me on?”