Bay Area high school students showed off their new aviation industry-related skills earlier this week at a graduation ceremony in a private hangar at San Francisco International Airport.

A person in a black jacket and cap speaks into a microphone while gesturing toward a large tanker truck with “SIGNATU” visible on its side.
Captain Barrington Irving speaks to attendees inside a Signature Aviation hangar at San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco, Calif., on Wednesday, July 29, 2026 to commemorate the graduation of the first Bay Area cohort of the Barrington Irving Technical Training School. (Andres Jimenez Larios/ Bay City News)

The ceremony on Wednesday marked the California expansion of a training program between private aviation servicing company Signature Aviation and Barrington Irving Technical Training School — a technical program created by Captain Barrington Irving, who was the first Black pilot ever to fly solo around the world and broke the at-the-time record for the youngest individual to do so at the age of 23 in 2007.

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