When Aviation Technology Group announced its decision Tuesday to open a manufacturing facility at Front Range Airport, it was a major step forward in efforts to build Colorado’s aerospace industry.
Since 1998, ATG has been developing a private two-seater Javelin jet that is configured like a fighter jet. The company will lease two hangars as it ramps up production.
At Front Range, aviation director Dennis Heap called ATG’s move “the start of the economic engine.”
Tom Clark and other Colorado economic development officials see it as a critical win.
Clark, the executive vice president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp., has made it a mission to retain and build the aerospace business in Colorado.
The industry offers skilled jobs with high pay and good growth prospects. In 2002, for example, metro Denver’s average annual salary in the aerospace industry cluster was $70,330.
In 2003, Denver was ranked second among the 50 largest metro areas for its concentration of aerospace industry cluster employment. Sales in the aerospace industry rose 8 percent in 2004, and net new orders are predicted to rise 19.9 percent in 2005, to $197.7 billion, according to the Aerospace Industries Association.
For the past two years, ATG had been considering locations for its manufacturing facility, including sites in Utah and New Mexico, as well as Front Range and Centennial airports.
Clark aggressively lobbied ATG to stay in Colorado, he said, because “if this is a cluster we want to grow, we can’t lose these guys.”
Keeping ATG in Colorado “is going to draw more talent into the region,” he said. “When you’re building a cluster, you want to have a critical mass of employers.”
Clark hopes ATG’s decision will be an impetus for other aerospace companies considering moving to or expanding in Colorado. Expansion of Jefferson County Airport-based Pilatus Business Aircraft is one priority, he said.
“Colorado is not a rich state, and it’s difficult sometimes to hold onto technology that is so promising and so exciting,” Clark said.
There have been major failures in Colorado’s struggle. Eclipse Aviation chose New Mexico over Colorado about five years ago.
Adam Aircraft, based at Centennial Airport, decided earlier this year to locate some of its new manufacturing operations in Utah.
“It took a combined effort of a whole host of people,” ATG chief executive George Bye said of his decision to stay in Colorado. He cited a variety of reasons, including the transportation infrastructure near Front Range, and metro Denver’s healthy local economy and workforce, quality of life, housing costs and good flying weather.
It also took financial incentives.
Local officials offered him a package that included a tax incentive in aviation development zones, enterprise zone incentives at Front Range, economic development funding from a federal grant, job training funding of up to $800 per job and state economic development funding of up to $2,000 per job.
ATG will maintain its headquarters at Centennial Airport, where about 90 work now. Robert Olislagers, airport director at Centennial, said he is happy for Front Range.
“We’re just very pleased that ATG is staying in Colorado first of all and that headquarters will continue to stay at Centennial Airport.”
Staff writer Kelly Yamanouchi can be reached at 303-820-1488 or kyamanouchi@denverpost.com.
