A Silver Lining

Apr. 16, 2010  |  By: Tim Cowden  |  Category: Economic Development
Tags: Economic Development, Jet Midwest, jobs, KCI, recruitment

When American Airlines announced some months ago that it was pulling out of the Overhaul Base it inherited from TWA a decade ago, I knew a lot of people around town were thinking that it would likely be at least another decade before a tenant would be found to fill the mammoth facility on the east side of KCI.  If I wasn’t involved with what was going on behind the scenes with the effort to back fill this space, I frankly wouldn’t blame those for taking a doubtful or cynical tone.

Well, after several months of diligence and creativity, the intrepid team at the Kansas City Aviation Department, led by Aviation Director Mark VanLoh and his Deputy Director, Dave Long, struck that notion down today. Jet Midwest, a commercial supplier of aircraft parts, engines and related equipment, announced today that it is going to aggressively grow its aircraft and engine repair and overhaul business at the former American Airlines facility.

Kansas Citians will no doubt applaud the news that an expected 500 skilled aircraft mechanics and related aerospace jobs will again support families in the KC region.  The news will be particularly well received in Kansas City’s Northland which has been hardest hit over the past decade as the life was slowly bled out of the old TWA facility which employed more than 4,000 just 20 years ago.

Candidly, for me it was depressing to walk through the place in recent years as you just knew at some point American was going to flip the keys back to the City and say they were heading elsewhere.  The commercial airline industry is brutally competitive and while our workforce in Kansas City was always cited for its high productivity, you just had the feeling what the end game was going to be.

But, just last year some new life was breathed into the old facility.  Smith Electric Vehicles announced it was going to take 100,000 square feet of renovated space and begin producing electric delivery trucks—which they are doing today.  Additionally, Smith is directing its U.S. operations from the former Farmland Industries headquarters building across I-29 that the Aviation Department picked up at a deep discount through a public auction nearly five years ago.

Shortly after the Smith Electric deal came together, talks started to heat up with the Jet Midwest team about consolidating operations from across the U.S. and moving them to KCI.  There were many stops and starts with the project and times when we just didn’t know if would come together.  Well, I guess today is the ultimate proof that it did.

The common denominator in both the Jet Midwest and Smith wins?  It took creativity and guts by the Aviation Department and the City to put these deals together.  Having been in the economic development business for many years, the approach that our aviation team takes is not the norm—and that’s a good thing!  Yes, they’ve ruffled some feathers in the KC development community for their aggressiveness.  But, it’s hard to dispute the fact that the majority of significant economic development recruitment success experienced by Kansas City, Missouri over the last two years has been due to the efforts of the KCI team—scoreboard!

With regard to the Jet Midwest project, without the assistance of the State of Missouri and the personal involvement of Governor Nixon, his Director of Economic Development, Dave Kerr, and Bob Miserez at the Missouri Development Finance Board, it simply wouldn’t have happened.  Additionally, Kim Young, a project leader with the State’s recruitment arm, the Missouri Partnership, was a critical element in bringing this success together.  Kim is tireless in her efforts to win projects—it is a pleasure to work with professionals like her.

The thousands of people who drive by the Overhaul Base on I-29 today see the Smith Electric Vehicles sign and will soon see another highlighting the presence of Jet Midwest.  It’s perfectly understandable for them to think that these deals “just happened.”  Well, as all of us involved in the trenches of economic development projects know, there’s a little more to it than that.