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By DAISY WASHINGTON / Community Columnist

From 2000 through 2005, Britt Engineering Associates Inc. owner Frank Britt helped to finance the 501c3 nonprofit called Skilled Knowledgeable Youth (SKY) missions to Honduras.

After reading about the SKY program in a newspaper article, Britt reached out to Brian Copes, Engineering teacher at Thompson High School in Alabaster. Honduras mission trips provide prosthetics in the form of arms and legs to the people of Honduras. Contributions have included utility vehicles—one of which was used as ambulance and another as a school bus—made by students.

Britt worked to get other businesses connected to assist the SKY mission trips.

“I wish we could have done more,” he said.

BEA made several donations, as much as $2,000 to purchase items for the trips.

Britt and his spouse of 48 years, Fran, were members of 66^th Street Baptist Church in the ’70s. They taught married couples for about 10 years.

“We adopted every one of them. They became our family. We took part of the group to nursing homes to visit patients,” he said.

During their 20-year membership at Crestwood Baptist Church Frank taught Sunday School and Fran assisted in the planning of church social events. He also served as a deacon for several years. They have been members of Leeds First Baptist Church since 2010, and he taught Sunday School in the adult class.

A native of Eutaw, Alabama, Britt joined the U.S. Air Force when he was 19 years old. He earned his airplane mechanic license through night school.

“I loved mechanics,” Frank pointed out.

At age 22 he became crew chief on a B-36 airplane.

“It was an awesome experience as a 19-year-old to be assigned to an airplane,” exclaimed Britt.

He earned a B.S. degree in aeronautical engineering in 1958 and is a registered professional engineer. He was employed as a flight test engineer at General Dynamics in Ft. Worth, Texas. Although he has been on dialysis for the past four years, he is devoted to caring for Fran, who has health issues.