Studer Community Institute

Aerospace's rural roots deepen in Panhandle

December 23, 2014
/ Charlotte Crane, Gulf Coast Reporters League
/ training-development

Bruce McCormack, a Navy veteran and quarter-century defense contractor, opened his company’s doors in June at Franklin County’s tiny Carrabelle, a location just right, he says – with lots of geography and small demographics, amid the dense forests and waterways of the Apalachicola River Basin and along the regionally dubbed Forgotten Coast. The timing also would seem right. “In 2012, everyone wanted to start using unmanned vehicles,” says McCormack. [sidebar] Gulf Coast Aerospace Corridor.com is a website created in 2008 to highlight aerospace activities along the Interstate 10 corridor between New Orleans and Northwest Florida. It includes reference material, job postings, a daily aerospace newsfeed and weekly column. In 2011, the website teamed with several journalists to create the Gulf Coast Reporters' League, which writes and publishes an annual book about aerospace in the region. The first book was published in June 2011. In September 2013, the League launched an eight-page quarterly aerospace newsletter, which became a bimonthly in August 2014 after the League published the fourth edition of the annual. All the books can be found at: www.gulfcoastaerospacecorridor.com/gcacbooksall.html; and all the newsletters can be found at www.gulfcoastaerospacecorridor.com/gcacnewslettersall.html. [/sidebar] His company, Gulf Unmanned Systems Center, is designed to serve civilian, military and law enforcement customers with unmanned systems that can look below waterway surfaces, probe the ocean depths and do aerial reconnaissance. The 15-employee business operates from a 14,000-square-foot headquarters and 64,800-square-foot Operations Center with adjacent runway. Gulf USC is among the few companies in Northwest Florida’s smaller, rural counties with aviation-related activities. While direct aerospace industry recruiting is rare in these counties, aerospace is nevertheless a key element of economic conversations, whether it’s a matter of gauging industrial support opportunities, training manufacturing workers or charting logistics needs. The $600 million Airbus plant being built in Mobile, Ala., is one reason for the aerospace talk. True, aviation has been a part of the region’s economy for years, but Airbus has placed the region on the world stage. To the northwest of Carrabelle in Jackson County, the 10-employee CHR International of Marianna has carved its own niche. It makes and sells $133,400 kits for its two-seat Safari helicopter. The company also markets and upgrades existing Safaris and assists kit buyers with assembly. It’s classified by U.S. regulators as experimental and not for commercial use. CHR also sells ready-made helicopters through dealers in New Zealand, Brazil, Russia, Germany, France and Taiwan. “We have our customers almost everywhere in the world,’’ says Delane Baker, who with her husband, Bobby, bought the business in 2009 from its Canadian founders. Sales are up 10-15 percent from a year ago. Why Marianna? “Wonderful climate, low cost-of-living and an educated work force because of the proximity to military bases which are aviation-focused … schools are turning out the mechanics.’’ When asked about interest in recruiting prime aerospace industries, economic developers in the near-dozen Northwest Florida smaller counties give such efforts little chance of success, due to stiff competition and their focus on mainstays, such as agriculture, tourism and consumer businesses. “We pursue these companies, but locations closer to our region’s military installations, such as Tyndall and Eglin, are saturated with retirees and former Air Force contract employees that attract the aerospace businesses,’’ says Roy Baker, financial services manager for the Jackson County Development Council. Economic development executives in nearby Calhoun, Washington and Liberty counties likewise say they aren’t recruiting in aerospace. But Larry Sassano, president of the 16-county Florida’s Great Northwest, sees aerospace as the one knocking. “There is opportunity and focus in the aerospace field now, even among rural counties. Among prospects for startups and development in Northwest Florida, 60 percent are focusing on aerospace,” he says. In Walton County, there’s a keen sense of a sitting-between status – of not being an aerospace center but not lacking potential. “We have an excellent window of time for attracting suppliers to the aviation industry, with Airbus going up in Mobile," says Steve Jaeger, executive director of the Walton County Economic Development Alliance. "Their suppliers, who are primarily European-based, will either have to ship to Mobile from Europe or set up manufacturing operations in the USA. If (they are) interested in the USA, that would mean within reasonable distance of Mobile. "And all of Northwest Florida becomes a candidate for that.’’ Walton County has joined four other counties – Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa and Bay – to focus on recruiting Airbus suppliers. Transportation convenience and improvements frequently are seen as ways to attract aerospace suppliers, and some small counties are buying into that concept. For example, substantial improvements done and planned at the Marianna Airport in Jackson County – including new lighting, runway and taxiway extensions and resurfacing – could impress site-shoppers. “The way we’re situated, we could be one of those places that’s close enough,’’ says City Manager Jim Dean. While Northwest Florida counties may be divided between those with strong aerospace interests and those relying on legacy industries, there’s one thing they all have in common: high interest in advanced manufacturing. Manufacturing, economic leaders point out, is a supplier industry for aerospace and is a growth industry in its own right. Thus, aerospace can be providing jobs even in counties with no direct aerospace operations. Take Holmes County, for example, says Jim Brook, executive director of Opportunity Florida, a nine-county organization promoting economic growth. “There are four shops there that do both specialized work and construction manufacturing for metal parts, some of those serving aerospace-related companies," Brook says. AUS Manufacturing Co. at Bonifay is one. “Any industry that involves machining and fabrication work has impact on our company,’’ says AUS President Jimmy Rich. AUS targets support equipment needs in bidding for work among aerospace companies. Because manufacturing is a key driver in the region – where it’s expected to grow faster than elsewhere in Florida — availability of workers with 21^st-century manufacturing skills is seen as critical. A recent survey by the Manufacturers Council of Northwest Florida predicted a shortage of 3,400 skilled manufacturing workers within five years – with aircraft mechanics among a dozen specialty areas. The worker advantage: Pay is higher than in most other jobs. Looking ahead, the Council and the University of West Florida recently partnered to give manufacturing careers a head start through creation of advanced manufacturing career academies in middle and high schools in Northwest Florida. One way or the other, all counties in Northwest Florida are likely to be impacted by the growing aerospace sector. Of 2,000 aviation and aerospace companies in the state, 500 are in Northwest Florida, according to Enterprise Florida. “Northwest rural counties are located no more than an hour away from an airport, large city or a college,” says Sean Helton, Enterprise Florida’s vice president of strategic communications. “The rural counties offer close proximity to strategic business resources, a wealth of business opportunities, an outstanding quality of life and plenty of available land." Not bad for starters.

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Aerospace's rural roots deepen in Panhandle

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