Bonjour, Paris: Baldwin County officials take off at Paris Air Show

By Cliff McCollum
Posted 6/23/17

Some Baldwin County officials have spent the last week at the Paris Air Show, touting the region’s successes and meeting with major companies to spread the word about the opportunities presented …

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Bonjour, Paris: Baldwin County officials take off at Paris Air Show

Posted

Some Baldwin County officials have spent the last week at the Paris Air Show, touting the region’s successes and meeting with major companies to spread the word about the opportunities presented for them in Baldwin County.

Baldwin County Economic Development Alliance President Lee Lawson, who was in Paris with Baldwin County Commission Chairman Chris Elliott, said the air show gives Baldwin County a unique opportunity to have face-to-face interactions with some of the aerospace industry’s biggest names.

“Our plan has been to connect with many aerospace decision makers and communicate to them our value proposition as an aerospace community,” Lawson said. “It is also a time to touch base with companies that we have existing relationships with to hear from them and update them on our success and opportunities in South Alabama.”

Elliott and Lawson said they could not give specific names for the companies they met with, but felt their meetings had been productive.

“We’ve been meeting with major suppliers to the aerospace industry, everything from big defense contractors to companies that make the smallest piece that goes on one specific plane,” Elliott said. “All of them have different Tier One, Two and Three suppliers, and some of them may be supplying a part that then supplies that part to an assembler.”

Lawson said the presence of existing aerospace manufacturers in the region, like UTC in Foley and Airbus in Mobile, have helped show the region’s viability for that sort of manufacturing.

“With the announcement of United Technologies Aerospace Systems great expansion last year, there truly is no greater value proposition testimonial than a world renowned aerospace company choosing Baldwin County to invest and grow their business,” Lawson said. “Through this growth opportunity and our continued work in the aerospace industry in the last decade, we plan to capitalize on these connections with UTAS’s third party validation of our region.”

Elliott agreed and said the face-to-face meetings with these companies is an invaluable tool for continued economic development for the county in that manufacturing sector.

“These projects are the result of long years of hard work and relationship building,” Elliott said. “Anyone that thinks that you can land a huge aerospace project in your community without having the pieces in place, including the relationship, is just wrong. That’s why having elected officials at these meeting is important. A company is not going to spend tens of millions in a place if it doesn’t feel comfortable about the political leadership there and the support for business overall.”