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| An artist's rendering of what project Titan will look like, on the ground at the Pensacola Airport, in 2024. |
A few years back we celebrated the completion of project Stallion and we looked forward with eager anticipation to the funding and commencement of project Titan.
These names, Stallion and Titan, are the economic development code words for the quarter of a Billion Dollar build out of hangars and administrative facilities for the Pensacola Airport by ST Engineering Aerospace that bagan with the $46 Million project Stallion, completed in 2017-2018.
That event was amazing, and I was honored to speak at the grand opening of hangar 1 (4:10 of this video) along with Mayor Ashton Hayward, Governor Rick Scott, and dignitaries from ST Engineering--the world's leader in aircraft maintenance, repair, and overhaul.
Between then and now, a lot of hard work has been put in, lots of money has been raised, and this week--the $210 Million Dollar project Titan officially begins with a groundbreaking on Thursday.
a staggering $66Million for this local project came from Triumph Gulf Coast (BP) funds---the largest such award in the panhandle of Florida to date!
Once again I have been invited to speak at this ceremony on behalf of the county-which I am very happy to do. I know the value of economic development in general--and to our community specifically.
While some feel we should not expend ANY taxpayer funds to pursue ANY opportunities like this and other large employers such as Navy Federal Credit Union, Ascend Performance Materials and/or ST Engineering--I completely disagree. In fact, I believe to go after such opportunities is an essential function of good governance!
Fortunately for the majority of rational, intelligent citizens that understand basic tenets of economic theory and economic development-- the very small and insignificant voices of dissent on such opportunities by naysayer policymakers locally get quashed by the majority that are rational and understand such things. Narrow minds never win the prize--and to listen to them on this project would result in this, what will be one of the largest MRO campuses in the world, going somewhere else like Austin, Seattle, San Diego, or Pittsburgh. But because those voices of dissent were not, are not, and will never be given any creedence on important topics like this--Such an opportunity and the concomitant $210,000,000 is being spent here, in Pensacola. With this project, once completed, Escambia County, Pensacola, and our region will achieve the following: (projected from a HAAS center study conducted in 2017)
--1,325 new, high paying jobs (in addition to the 400 new
jobs from Project Stallion)
--a regional Center of Excellence for the MRO
industry
--a new Aerospace industry sector, adding resiliency
to the economic base, in addition to tourism and military
--a regional magnet to attract talent and supply
chain businesses
--Enhanced and expanded regional educational programming-
George Stone, Pensacola State College, B.T. Washington and others.
--a pathway to the middle class for many
--1,725 new jobs in the targeted Aviation/Aerospace industry
sector for a fully developed MRO aviation campus (Project Stallion and Project
Titan combined). New jobs will be added as each hangar element is completed.
--Average guaranteed wages >$45,000 per employee (actual
amount is greater)
--3,400 new indirect jobs*
--$400 Million annual personal income increase
--$600 Million Florida GDP annual increase
--Annual rental income of > $1.0 million per year to Pensacola International Airport from ST
Engineering
--Annual ad valorem income of > $3.5 million to City and
County from ST Engineering
11 comments:
Another great addition to Pensacola. The people against expending any taxpayer funds to pursue any opportunities like this and other large employers have never run a business much less a county. You have to spend money to make money. They can’t complain about the lack of living wage here if they fight every opportunity to bring in better paying jobs. Their arguments are counterproductive as always.
1300 new jobs in addition to the 400 thats already been created is HUGE. If anyone whines about this they have some screws loose or they don’t have any skills to qualify for one of the jobs.
The naysayers wouldn’t complain if they were intelligent and properly comprehended facts laid out to them. This is a great opportunity for Pensacola.
In the 62 years I’ve had the good fortune to be on this earth I’ve observed and learned a lot about people. The most vocal naysayers that fight positive progress are unsuccessful in their own lives. I guarantee you if you looked at their lives under the same scrutiny they do progressive projects, you’ll see they usually live at or below the poverty line, they have jobs they’re unsatisfied with, not fulfilling careers that give them opportunity for growth, and their envy for others that have built a solid foundation of financial stability, eats them up inside. This is America, land of the free, and they’ve had the opportunity to soar in life, and for whatever reason they didn’t. Naysayers that fight community advancement only have negativity on their side. Misery loves company. Ignore and keep moving forward.
Bravo.
Bravo.
D3, your observation about naysayers is on target.
Thanks to you Commisioner Bergosh, Matt (you’ve done an incredible job with the airport and it’s been a pleasure to fly in and out weekly), Lewis, Kevin, Jamal, Pam, Doug B., and Jeff L. for all of your hard work and forward thinking. The economic development you’ve brought to our little corner of Florida is going to be a big asset.
Triumph GC board members, thank you for your forward thinking that goes into distributing the BP funds to help North West Florida recover and prosper.
...and on the same day the shovels hit the dirt on Project Titan, Studio 850 broke the news that TRIUMPH awarded 6 million dollars to IHMC:
"Recruiting and hiring researchers and innovators has begun to create a "cluster' of STEM talent that will attract Dept. of Defense funding in leading edge research."
Thus giving lie to yet another favorite ECW disinformation refrain that ST would preclude Escambia from further TRIUMPH funding.
This is what losing looks like, Doug. The days of successful obstructionism by you and your political devotees are done.
--Melissa Pino
"County Commissioner Jeff Bergosh called the MRO facility “the manifestation of leadership.” Pointing to the hangar completed in 2018, he said, “Leadership brought all the stakeholders together, put aside the naysayers, collaborated and put together all the money necessary and resources to build that. And now three years later, you look over there, we’ve got jets coming in, jobs happening, and now we will move onto the next stage, Project Titan.”
https://ricksblog.biz/project-titan-begins/
Give it a rest Pino! Your pissing off more voters with your constant blabbering about Underhill and ECW. Come election time you'll have turned off an entire voting block.
Anonymous 8:50, your acrimony seems in part to come from a misunderstanding that what I have been doing the last few years has had anything to do with politicking, or recently with campaigning.
I haven't even started any form of campaign, and every time somebody asks "how is the campaign going," my answer has been "I'm not even thinking about that. The things I am trying to help across the finish line with my advocacy are way more important to me than any campaign."
The portion of your opinion that I have "turned off an entire voting block" that might be based on remaining support for ECW and Doug is completely divorced from the reality of how the majority of our community and D2 view their tactics and goals now. People heavily engaged in the political sphere have always recognized what they were about. Now the greater percentage of anybody who is aware that a Doug Underhill or an ECW exist has eyes wide open to what their program has been all along, and where it has inevitably landed them in their ability to achieve their desired results and in the court of public opinion.
The more realistic portion of your opinion pertains to whether my constant struggle over the last few years to counteract vicious and damaging Douggite disinformation will negatively effect my ability to pull a majority vote. There is of course something to that, as in order to reveal what their programs were really about, I had to hand their own medicine right back to them--minus their lies, libel, and disinformation. Nobody recognizes better than me that at times that has been a very ugly spectacle. I recognize that people have viewed what I considered a necessary, years-long social media and political war--necessary, to my mind, because nothing was getting better at the County or our community until the toxic malignancy of Doug and ECW were neutralized--with varying degrees of support or distaste. Even when it's absolute necessary, war is an ugly thing.
So in the end, I'm imagining the results will shake down, in part, between (1) what number of people think I went too far at times, or all the time, whether they recognized the degree of political evil I was fighting or not; and (2) what number of people recognized that somebody simply had to take that battle on, and are satisfied with, maybe even some grateful for, some of the results.
The race will of course have many other important factors beyond the above. Money, of course. Work. But I think, most of all, whether enough voters in District 2 can let go of that "R" and really evaluate all the candidates for their merits, deficits, and previous results.
Thanks for forcing me to think hard on that and try to articulate it clearly. How not to become a Doug or a Jacqueline while having to fight them tooth and nail in the political arena has been a daily source of introspection, sadness, and even, at times, trauma for me for nearly five years. To put it simply, this has been a very difficult time. So I'm grateful an opening presented itself for me to express some thoughts on it, as a human being with strengths and weaknesses more than as a political candidate with an electorate to consider.
--Melissa Pino
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