Well, when a cutting-edge hypersonic aircraft manufacturer chooses your community as the new home for its $500 million “super factory” – and announces that it will be creating over 2,000 jobs to boot – it turns out that that puts everyone in a wonderful mood.
On Wednesday, Jan. 26, at 2 p.m., there was an atmosphere of complete and utter joy at Piedmont Triad International Airport (PTIA) where a large number of local and state leaders assembled to hear the announcement that Boom Technology Inc. was locating at PTIA.
It wasn’t the best kept secret in the world. However, the Jan. 26 announcement did make it official that the huge project would entail designing, manufacturing and testing the new supersonic jets out at PTIA with the promise of drastically reducing flight time for domestic and international flights.
Hundreds of onlookers and state and local leaders were in the audience on the frigid windy day for the announcement that lasted just over an hour.
The project is important not only to this area but also to the state – and one speaker at the afternoon outdoor event was NC Governor Roy Cooper. The governor said that it would create 1,761 jobs, and hundreds more on top of that in the next 10 years.
He said that estimates were that the project would have a $32.3 billion economic impact on the region over the next 20 years.
Governor Cooper noted that this state was the first in flight and now it was the home to a factory that was making the first planes of the future.
“It is both poetic and logical,” Cooper said of the factory being in North Carolina.
He added that there are more great things to come for the state.
“North Carolina is ready to soar,” the happy governor said.
Many local leaders spoke as well, including the mayors of Greensboro, High Point and Winston-Salem and the chairmen of the Guilford County and Forsyth County Boards of Commissioners.
Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan thanked all those involved for “landing this incredible project,” making a play on words that everyone else no doubt considered but passed up.
“Sorry, I had to go there,” Vaughan said.
Can BOOM get the “up and down” escalators to work at the same time? I fly 40 to 45 weeks a year out of GSO….. They seldom, if ever, both work.
Good question. Poorly asked but good question….does this provide PTI funds that they could use to improve the terminal services or reduce the gate fees for airlines?
So chris since we all know you failed math are you trying to be an English major now. Guess what comrade you and tuna both get failing grades