 Welcome to Sheboygan County Government, working for you. My name is Adam Payne, Sheboygan County Administrative Coordinator and co-host of this program with Chairman Bill Gehring. And today we're real pleased to have our guest Chuck Mayer with us, who is the Director of the Airport. As you know, especially if you've been watching this program over the years, we have a number of departments in Sheboygan County, including the Health and Human Services Department, Health Care Center, Sheriff's Department, Highway. Most people are familiar with what many people may not be aware of the jewel we have in this community, and that is the Sheboygan County Memorial Airport. Again, it's nice to have Chuck Mayer with us today. Thanks Adam. Chuck, please begin by sharing with us a little bit about your background and your time working at the airport. Well Adam, I've had the privilege for the past 18 years of managing that wonderful facility. Prior to the airport management, I had actually been with the County Planning and Resources Department for many, many years. A transition occurred from 1987 through 1990, where I actually had kind of a split position with the county. I was the airport zoning manager, excuse me, the county planning department's zoning manager, and then also the airport department manager, so it was kind of being pulled in two different directions, and it worked okay for about three years until we got the airport back on its feet and what not, and then the county board saw fit to basically re-establish that department, and I've been there ever since, and it's been a challenge and it's just been a wonderful experience. So how many years now have you been the director at the airport? 18. 18 years. And I know there's an interesting history with the airport, but certainly your involvement there, a lot of good things have happened. Why don't you share a little bit about the primary mission and responsibilities that your department has. The county airport department is probably one of the smallest departments in county government, and we oversee one of the largest holdings as far as real estate that the county owns. I think besides the Shboygan Marsh, the airport may be the next largest holding that we have. Presently the airports expanded to approximately 1,040 acres, and a lot of that acreage had occurred probably in the last 18 years because of our expansion and what not, and it looks like in the next few years we'll also be growing once again. But the responsibility of the airport department is to maintain that facility, to keep a safe operations environment for the air travelers, the flight departments that are there, a tenorant aircraft that come and go through that facility. We're also responsible for the operations budget, and especially something I'm proud of is the long-range planning that has gone into that facility, and as a real positive spin-off of the long-range plans, the environmental and economic impact studies that go with that planning is the fact that it's allowed the airport department to realize just an enormous amount of state and federal funding and grants and what not that come into the Shboygan County to offset the cost of projects at the facility. Now, you've been the director for 18 years, and in a moment we're going to get into more of some of that long-term planning and some of the projects that have come to fruition. But for our viewers who weren't aware of that Shboygan County operated an airport or aren't aware where it is, why don't you address that for them? Where is the airport, and how long has Shboygan County operated an airport? The airport for anyone who doesn't get out of the city of Shboygan is about seven-and-a-half miles due west of the city limits. You just take Highway 23 to the west, and when you get to Highway TT, you turn north and TT will just take you right into that facility. How long has the county had an airport? The airport has been in operation now. This is the 45th year. Interesting history as far as how that facility got started. A lot of smaller airstrips around the county, back in the 20s, 30s, 40s and what not, and an awful lot of debate between the city and county and other municipalities as far as a publicly owned airport. In 1956, the county board finally put that issue to public referendum, and it was the November 1956 election that was on that ballot, and it passed by, you know, it was a very favorable margin. At that point, from what I recall, Parks Property Aviation Committee was created. To oversee the airport, construction began, I think, in 1958. It was completed in 1960 and officially dedicated in 1962, and we've had it ever since. Now you mentioned some of the roles and responsibilities of your department. You said it was one of the smallest. Just how small is it? How many staff do you work with? Myself as a full-time manager, and I have two full-time airport maintenance technicians. This time of the year, when we get into some heavy snow conditions and what not for snow removal operations, then we have the privilege of being able to bring in a limited term employee to help us with the grounds, maintenance, plowing, things like that. And so far so good with that snow removal? So far this winter has been very kind to us, other than, you know, the snowfall we had the other week, and events like that just as an example, as far as the size of that airport. I've got three plow trucks, two fairly good-sized trucks, similar to what you find at the county highway department, and the six-inch snowfall, we dispatch those two trucks, and typically each truck will put on over 130 miles in snow removal effort, you know, to clean up that facility. And then we bring in some of the smaller trucks, and we've got some large snow blowers, and front-end loaders, and you know, it's quite the task. Now, if someone was heading out there for the first time, obviously they'd see a pretty impressive airport, and you have your office with your staff, and then there's the fixed-base operator. That's where, as you well know, where the folks come and go, primarily, when they come into the airport. Who is the fixed-based operator? The present fixed-base operator at Sheboygan Airport is Western Shore Aviation. And that's a full-service aviation-orientated business that provides air charter services. They'll provide flight instruction, they rent airplanes, they have a full maintenance shop for doing engine work, air framework, annual inspections, full service. Very good. And when you say full service, just how busy is this airport? You can put that in perspective for us. Yeah, it's something, again, one of the technical points I'm really proud of, as far as what we were able to do with that airport over the last 18 years, as far as attracting tenants that base aircraft there, industrial corporate flight departments that are based there now. We're up to about 135 aircraft based at the facility. Estimated worth of those machines are in excess of $80 million. We experience over 66,000 aircraft operations a year, take-off landings, things like that. The big picture, what is Sheboygan, or where Sheboygan Airport in relation to the other airports in the state of Wisconsin? Typically, I believe there's in excess of 103 public airports out there just in Wisconsin alone. Sheboygan would be ranked number six, as far as the number of based aircraft at a facility, and number 10, as far as yearly operations. Very impressive. And finally, before turning it over to Bill, give our viewers a flavor of the tenants that are primarily out there. You said you had over 100 airplanes that are based there? 135, presently right. What types of tenants do we have out there? The backbone of our facility is made up primarily of industrial and corporate and some commercial flight departments. I think we've got about 14 corporate and industrial flight departments operating out of Sheboygan Airport. Some of our main tenants out there would be the Collard Company, Bemis, Eclipse, Plastics Engineering, and the list goes on and on. We've got the large industrial list, plus we have smaller up-and-coming businesses, which is really great because historically we'll see the smaller up-and-coming businesses start on the east side of the airport where we have the small individual hangers, and in time all of a sudden they transition over to the west side of the field where we have the larger corporate hangers. It's kind of nice to be part of that growth and seeing that happen every year. Very good. Chuck, you and your staff do a lot of the maintenance and repairs on the airport itself, but you're also very involved in the planning for the improvement, the long-range improvement of the airport. How does that process work? How do you decide what to improve, where to improve? I guess, you know, just going back to, you know, when we first, when the county re-established its management role at that facility back in 1987, a lot of infrastructure, you know, had kind of been unattended to and whatnot, so it was a long and tedious ordeal getting infrastructure back in place with the assistance of the county resources committee for many years, who I answered to now in the last three years, it was the transportation committee. That was a real good sounding board to work with and helping to prioritize projects. We also have an airport advisory committee that is appointed by the county board and we also use, you know, that group as a safety net to kind of help us out and put all of these projects in perspective, prioritize, you know, what is necessary and then look at the cost, you know, as far as, you know, what's in the best interest of the taxpayer and, you know, where will the funds come from, you know, to, you know, cause these projects to occur. The current long-range plan actually reaches out through 2012 with a major capital improvement program for just about every year and I'm sure we'll be talking about that in a little bit too as far as, you know, what we've done and, you know, what's coming out. You always seem to be working on one project or another. What are the current projects that are underway? For this year, we're getting into the probably one of the biggest projects in the history of that airport and that's going to be the extension of our primary or our instrument runway. That'll be a four-year project, about 7.6 million dollars, so we're doing it in phases, you know, just as far as the economic cost of that alone, make it a little bit more bearable, you know, to have that project completed. And we're also looking at some of the design concept work for expanding the west side of the airport to create more industrial and commercial hangar lots, because at present time I've only got one industrial lot available on the west side of the field and we do have some tenants or potential tenants wanting to, you know, develop out there, so we need to keep up with with the demand. Are there any other longer-range projects or wish list projects that you have out there? 2012 is comfortable. We know what's needed as far as runway strengthening or ramp extensions, things like that, and beyond that. You know, I guess my crystal ball that we use really isn't all that clear at this time, and we'll just wait and see which way the flow basically goes as far as our development. What type of tenants, especially the commercial industrial tenants that come on board, what their needs are as far as runway lengths, itinerant aircraft coming into the airport also as far as size of aircraft that, you know, typically would like to frequent the facility and if we have to turn them away or not because of, you know, infrastructure limitations that we have. How are most of the projects funding? You don't seem to be coming to the county board for great sums of money, yet the projects do have a substantial cost. So who really is paying for them? Where is the money coming from? A lot of this, again, falls back on that comprehensive long-range plan, you know, that we work under. And by having that plan out there, that the Bureau, the Wisconsin Bureau of Aeronautics is, you know, dialed into and especially the FAA, by keeping both those levels of government informed with what our intentions are, what our wishes are, we have been able to program a considerable amount of money from Federal Aviation Trust and all of the, under the AIP program, which is the airport improvement program, State of Wisconsin is allowed a block grant every year of money from the Federal Aviation Trust and that money is funneled specifically into public airport improvements and with over 100 airports in the state of Wisconsin, we're all competing for that money. And those of us who have our ducks in a roll, as far as the planning, the studies, everything else, you know, we're pretty much, you know, right up on top there as far as being able to secure that funding. Can that funding stream state fairly stable or do you see it being cut back with all of the state and federal cutbacks that we hear about? Great question. Believe it or not, December of 2004, President Bush signed the Federal Airport Transportation Bill and which was, this is really surprising, is that the funding, federal portion of funding for airport improvements has increased from cost sharing of 90 percent, which typically that's, you know, the way it had always been, that's bumped up to 95 percent and that is guaranteed from this year through 2007. So the timing couldn't be better. Here, Sheboygan County is with this major runway extension, 7.6 million and the federal government now is going to cost share that 95 percent. Bureau of Aeronautics will be contributing two and a half percent. So now the airport, myself as the department head, only need to approach the county board for two and a half percent of that project. That's a great answer. We had started out initially in the county five-year plan. I had shown about 1.5 million in county funds needed to support that 7.6 million project. Now we're down to about $250,000. I'm happy. Talk a little bit more about the economic power of the airport. Somebody might ask me, well, why have an airport? What does it really do for the county? What does it do for our area economically? Going back again, tying in with the plans and the studies that we've done back, as far back as 1993, we initiated an economic impact study and then again in 95, 97, 2000, 2002. That's the latest. Haven't had a chance to, you know, to initiate another study but I guess the bottom line is average on these studies show that the economic benefit versus the expense of the airport 24 to 1 is typically what we're looking at as far as the indirect direct economic benefit dollars coming back into the community by having that airport, you know, and then looking at what it costs the county to, you know, maintain the airport and do the improvements and things like that. The last study, I think, identified about 17 million dollars of economic impact the airport had on Sheboygan County alone. Over 20 million impact of Sheboygan County and the state of Wisconsin combined as far as jobs, other supportive services, sales that occur as a result of the airport being their tourism, which is just as you know with our world-class golf courses, if it wasn't for that airport being an integral part of that mix. Yeah, it makes a big difference. Okay, thank you, Chair. Adam? And when you say 24 to 1, you're saying for every dollar the county puts into that airport we're getting a return of 24 dollars back in the community. Right, whether it be direct, indirect, that's the influence the airport has on dollars coming back into the community. Very impressive. Yeah. Very impressive. You talked about some projects, some projects that you're working on and I don't know if you mentioned the the new welcome center that's underway. What's the status of that and how did that come about? Yeah, we had some real dedicated airport tenants and a local EAA chapter 766 that teamed together and it took many many years of planning, fundraising that Sheboygan County Aviation Corp basically raised 1.7 million dollars in in donations, you know, for this welcome center and learning center to be built. And as the video is rolling I believe and the viewers can see, you know, the shell of the building now basically the superstructure is up. The Sheboygan County Aviation Corp is hoping to have that building done by wings and wheels again Father's Day which will be June 19th and that will kind of be the grand opening of this new facility. We're really looking forward to it. It's going to be such a great centerpiece to the airport. It's on fronting on the main ramp so that as, you know, folks fly into Sheboygan County that have never been here before, that first impression, you know, that that is so important to, you know, kind of what to expect of Sheboygan County. Well there's no question during your tenure there's just been dramatic improvements made to the airport and I imagine some of our viewers perhaps have taken the time to go out there for the wings and wheels event which is each year on Father's Day weekend I believe, is it not? That's right. And I think if you haven't been impressed in the past you're certainly going to be impressed this year when you see not only this new welcome center that they're they're hoping to, I think, open the doors for the first time on that event if all goes well and you've also had some additional expansion, have you not, to the what's south of the airport? Right and maybe if we could just take a look at the aerial photo of that we brought along here and just identify some of the things that have occurred out here at the airport. The last time we, you know, we'd done a program here at TV8 was in 2002. Since 2002 there's been an awful lot that has happened at the airport. One of the biggest projects since that time is the relocation of County Trunk Highway Oll. County Trunk Oll used to run directly in front of the airport. As you can see on the pointer here now we've located, relocated that road further to the south to make room for additional individual hangers on the east side of the airport and then a corporal, excuse me, corporate and commercial development on the west side of the airport. So that's one major capital project that you know has been completed so far. This past summer the county highway department was able to construct an additional 35 hangar lot area for development before the highway department was ever able to get the asphalt down on that project. We had two tenants, you know new tenants wanting to build out there already. In spring, this spring at this point in time I'm expecting six leases to be signed with the county for development on the east side of the airport, you know, which is really great. And these folks are coming to us. One of the new tenants is relocating from West Bend Airport and I've got another tenant coming down to us from Manitowoc County, an auto supplier manufacturer wanting to develop here because of you know the progressive facility that we have. And when you talk about you know all the tenants that are out there, the multimillion dollar planes and obviously the buildings to house these planes, we had a real tragedy in our in our country's history in New York with 9-11 and there's been a height and level of security not only in everyone's lives but certainly at airports. What measures have you taken or has the county taken as a whole to improve the security at our airport? Okay, well I think it was a few years before 9-11 was upon us. We had other situations at county airport as far as problems with wildlife, deer running across runways and being hit by airplanes and things and it was not a very very safe environment. With the help of some funding from our corporate and industrial tenants and county board, we were able to come up with again you know cost-sharing formula and the FAA was able to again pay the majority cost of a perimeter fence. We've got 5.6 miles of perimeter fence around the airport. The fence is 8 foot high, a barbed wire topping. After the 9-11 incident we then basically moved forward to expand on that perimeter fence rather than animal abatement. Now it's kind of animal abatement and security. The nine gates that we have on the southern quadrant of the airport which is our terminal area I was able to transition all of those gates to key fob access where prior you know basically you just drive up to the white line in front of the gate and the gate would open automatically and anybody could you know ingress, egress you know on that on those locations that has all changed now. It is you know we got it buttoned up and then we also move forward beyond the security, access security and brought on board video surveillance at these gated accesses. Funding for all of this we were able to work with Homeland Security and funding on on those projects were paid for 100 percent. I know when the PGA rolled into town last year and obviously it was a tremendously successful event and you had a lot of people coming and going at the airport again you were able to get creative and garner some funds to improve the lighting out there if I recall correctly and what else there were there were a few other things that I thought you were able to do. We it enhanced the the video surveillance we had the the FAA in cooperation with the FAA they came in and provided a temporary air traffic control tower and just a whole bunch of other infrastructure improvements. We had a pledge from the Wisconsin Bureau of Aeronautics to pay up to $189,000 you know to to help the county with you know supporting that that type of huge public event funding from the Wisconsin Office of Administration was able to garner another $10,000 for airport security it was it was just great you know and so again our viewers listening today and hearing this perhaps for the first time certainly if they were under the impression that of this county airport was run under county property tax levy dollars though that's a part of the puzzle when you talk about the multimillion dollars that have gone into the extensions of the runways and everything else what you mentioned earlier to build a 80 90 95 percent reimbursement from the state and federal government just phenomenal and obviously a tremendous asset to the community. Definitely and I guess just to add to that a little bit as far as my operating budget per year as an example for 2005 I think we're at $398,000 it's total operational cost out of that better than one third of that amount is offset by revenues that are generated on the airport proper on top of that you look at the the number of improvements out there by private sector commercial industrial sector tenants the buildings that they have put up are assessed at over I think it's close to four million dollars that also comes back to us on the tax roll. We only had a 30 minute program to work with but I hope you certainly got a appreciation for the immense responsibility and the value that the Sheboyton County Memorial Airport brings to our community and and Bill and I certainly appreciate Chuck being here today to give us a brief snapshot of of the work that ensues out there. If you haven't had an opportunity to visit your airport I encourage you to do so all right now with the snow out there things being a little slick it may not be as pretty as it is in the summer but you don't have to wait till wings and wheels to get out there and again check out your airport and all the progress as you could see from the the aerial photo that Chuck was looking at earlier it's a it's a beautiful site and there's a lot that's been done and whether it's the base operator or Chuck himself I'm sure they'd be happy to share with you or answer any questions that you might have so don't hesitate to go out there and check it out. Next month we're going to have another department head as our guest and that will be Dale Pauls from the health care centers and as some of you may be aware we continue to be seeking to own and operate two facilities yet reduce the property tax levy to do so and that's been a tremendous challenge for the county board and our staff so we're pleased next month that Dale Pauls is going to be here to shed some more light on that and until then on behalf of county board chairman Bill Gehring and myself Adam Payne thank you very much for joining us.