Port Authority celebrates 20 years of saving local jobs

• The Air Force chose Rockwell to continue inertial guidance navigation work, which Boeing does today.
• The Central Ohio Aerospace and Technology Center campus employs about 1,300 at 21 companies.

HEATH – A generation ago, Licking Countians feared all the jobs at the Newark Air Force Base would leave the area.

The Heath-Newark-Licking County Port Authority, created May 18, 1995, faced one of the greatest local challenges of the last quarter century: keeping work here after the base closed.

Twenty years later, not only does much of the work remain, the Port Authority has attracted new companies to an expanded campus around the original 57-acre base.

Many employees at the base in 1995 kept not only their jobs but employment opportunities for their sons and daughters.

“The most optimistic of people would not have dared predict the phenomenal growth we’ve achieved today,” said former Newark Mayor Frank Stare, who joined Heath Mayor Chet Geller and Licking County Commissioner Don Hill in forming the Port Authority.

The 350-acre Central Ohio Aerospace and Technology Center campus, managed by the Port Authority, employs about 1,300 at 21 companies, including Kaiser Aluminum, for a payroll of $88 million.

Hill said the Port Authority has exceeded what was expected two decades ago.

“That is certainly what we were dreaming of 20 years ago,” Hill said. “That part of it is a dream come true. They’ve done very well in being conservative with the money they have received.”

COATC employment approaches the level at the base in 1995 but remains far from the peak employment of 3,000 during the early 1970s.

Boeing and Bionetics perform the work previously done by the Air Force, while more recent additions like Samuel Strapping, xperion, Chromocare, Homestead Beer, MISTRAS Group and Ariel Corp. provide a diverse mix of job opportunities.

There are two speculative buildings under construction, 115 additional acres to develop and a purchase agreement to acquire 300 more acres along Thornwood Drive.

Trying times

Heath Zoning Inspector John Groff, a member of the Reuse Commission prior to the Port Authority, said they had to overcome a sense of doom after it became clear the base would close.

“It was a time of great concern, not just for Heath, but everyone, the whole county,” Groff said. “(We realized) it’s not a death blow to the community if you play your cards right.”

The attempt to privatize-in-place a former Air Force Base had never been done before, so the new Port Authority had no road map to follow.

“Nobody knew that this was going to work,” said commercial Realtor Steve Layman, a Port Authority appointee of the county commissioners. “There was a lot of perceived risk. A lot of people in the community were scared to death of this thing.”

The late Wally Horton, a retired civilian Air Force engineer and first executive director of the Port Authority, lobbied to save the base, then lobbied to keep the work here.

“As it turned out, Wally Horton knew better than everybody,” Layman said. “He had a better understanding of what was here and what was possible and what was not possible.

“The community owes a continuing debt of gratitude to Wally for his insights and understanding and dedication to the mission, and determination to see it through.

Lew Mollica, original chairman of the Port Authority board, said the community needed the right leaders to help navigate uncharted waters.

“I don’t want to say it was scary, but a lot of questions were left unanswered,” Mollica said. “We had very, very good people on that board.”

The board had three members appointed from Heath (Dan Dupps, Mary Jane McDonald, and Jeff Crabill), three from Newark (Dan DeLawder, Jerry Besanceney and Robert Klingensmith) and three from the county (Mollica, Layman and Charles Manning).

“I don’t think any of us thought we represented one entity and not the whole thing,” Mollica said. “That was never an issue. We were all working for Licking County as an entity.”

Local advantages

The Newark Air Force Base had many advantages, including the area’s seismic stability, which allows for precision work to be performed at Building 4, now occupied by Boeing.

“The process is tied to the location,” Groff said. “We have geologic stability, and the work there required that stability and not many other facilities in the U.S. offer that stability. We used that as a bargaining tool.”

The Air Force realized the work should remain in Heath, and selected Rockwell as the contractor to continue its inertial guidance navigation work after the base closed. Boeing bought part of Rockwell in 1997 and continues that work today.

“The precision we’re able to achieve is second to none,” Port Authority CEO Rick Platt said. “It’s the reason it had to be here and that it’s still here is the No. 1 accomplishment.”

Platt said it’s risky moving the equipment, so taking it elsewhere might not achieve the same results.

The local workforce provides another advantage that helped keep the work here 20 years ago and remains an advantage, officials said.

The manufacturing tradition in the Licking County workforce has not evaporated like it has in other places, Platt said.

“The stereotype is you find engineers in big cities and technician talent in suburbs, but we’re able to provide both, and that’s unique,” Platt said.

As the campus grows and more jobs are available, local residents who commute to Columbus may pursue these positions, Fisher said.

“I think we do have a local resource to fall back on,” Fisher said. “People may be willing to drive five miles to work instead of 30 miles to work. It lends itself to that type of opportunity.”

And, providing work opportunities was the Port Authority’s goal in 1995.

“We’ve defied the naysayers for 20 years,” Platt said.

kmallett@newark

advocate.com

740-328-8545

Twitter: @kmallett1958

Timeline

May 18, 1995: Port Authority created, with support of Newark, Heath and Licking County.

Oct 1, 1996: Newark Air Force Base closes and Port Authority begins management of the base.

Sept. 24, 1997: Replica of Minuteman ICBM, a 90-foot tall missile, removed from the base after 30 years.

June 1999: Office of the Secretary of Defense bestows the Exemplary Work in Base Redevelopment honor to the former Newark Air Force Station.

August 2000: Net investments of Port Authority’s creating entities, more than $250,000 combined, returned to Heath, Newark, and Licking County. Port Authority has been self-sufficient, without support of tax dollars, since.

July 2002: Port Authority Board hires Rick Platt to be the third executive director of the Port Authority.

Oct. 1, 2006: Wally Horton joins Port Authority Board members in burning the mortgage for the Aerospace Center at 10-year commemorative.

May 2007: Kaiser Drive and James Parkway extended in preparation for the arrival of Samuel Manu-Tech.

Sept. 21, 2009: Port Authority opens Made in Licking County Bridge opens, completing the extension of James Parkway from Kaiser Drive to Irving Wick Drive.

Oct. 8, 2011: Horton Building opens.

Sept. 24, 2013: Boeing signs a seven-year extension of its lease, with an option for seven additional years.

Nov. 14, 2013: German automotive supplier xperion announces it will occupy James Parkway facility, where it will manufacture composite automotive tanks for compressed natural gas.

August 2014: Mistras Group, a Heath company located on the Kaiser Aluminum property, announced it will expand into a new 60,000-square-foot industrial building on James Parkway.

Jan. 30, 2015: Ariel Corp., a manufacturer of gas compressors, announced it purchased Southgate‘s speculative building on Kaiser Drive and will hire personnel to work at the new $3.2 million facility.

January 2015: The Air Force Metrology and Calibration Program will move its 108 employees out of the Metrology Building into the Horton Building.

March 26, 2015: New Albany-based Chromocare Limited leases clean room in Horton Building to do genetic testing for drug compatibility.

May 18, 2015: Port Authority board approves $3 million property purchase agreement for 300 acres owned by Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus along Thornwood Drive.

Source: Port Authority, Advocate archives