Ted Clem the Executive Director of Bay County Economic Development Alliance stood in front of the room during the media briefing about a new airport and his first words were insightful; "we had an opportunity to design a new airport from scratch, to draw it on a blank piece of paper". And with that mandate, the development team sought to design and build a model facility. It is a unique opportunity. The design plan includes plenty of space for the facilities including runways, terminals, cargo areas, commercial and industrial sites, hotels and residential homes. And more impressively, the airport will satisfy the requirements of neighborhood committees, city planners and environmentalists. The airport is only part of the impressive development that is going on in Florida's north-west corridor. This part of Florida which runs along the coastline below Georgia and Alabama is sometimes called the Panhandle, sometimes called the Emerald Coast, but always a home to many military installations as Pensacola Naval Air Station, Eglin and Tindall Air Force Bases. The once sleepy area of over 25,000 square miles is growing very fast and becoming more and more popular. One factor in the regions growth is the effective marketing and promotion of the region. Enterprise Florida and Florida's Great Northwest were the hosts of the media tour and they treat Florida as if it was there own; and this is evident in their enthusiasm. The cost of homes and property is escalating and new businesses are streaming in. They are attracted by the availability of skilled workers, tax relief and quality of life benefits. Ken Willette, the Director of Business Development for Florida Great Northwest, Inc. told me that they estimate more than 1,000 new citizens a day arrive in Florida. With tax happy politicos in the New York, New Jersey region, it would not surprise me if many of the new migrants are coming from our neck of the woods. The Bay County airport will be developed in an entirely new locale, about five miles from the old airport and across what the Panama City residents call "West Bay". It will be sited on 4,000 acres - about the size of Dulles Airport - which were donated by the St. Joe Corporation; one of the most important development and real estate firms in Florida. Why would a real estate corporation contribute land for a new airport? I think it is partly because they want to see Florida grow and prosper as good corporate citizens, but also because it is in their self-interest. Transportation and infrastructure development attracts people, raises real estate values which in turn bring in businesses. Panama City is a centrally sited on the coast of the Panhandle with Pensacola an hour and a half drive to the West and Tallahassee a two hour drive to the east. While these towns are not large in comparison to big U.S. Cities nor not even large compared to Miami or Orlando, they are growing very fast and the entire area will soon have a population of 1,500,000. Because of the proximity to the military bases - which have a large component of experimental and research installations - there is an interesting mix of professional and military personnel that make locating a technology business a good way to draw skilled and motivated employees. We made a visit to a firm called Crestview which is a company dedicated to repair and modification of fixed wing aircraft and helicopters, serving the needs of the U.S. Air Force and private firms alike. The company began in 1990 with three employees in a large hangar and now, the firm employs over 1,200 and will continue to grow in the future. There are many other firms like Crestview that serve as hi-technology businesses in this newly emerging technical strip. It has a ways to go before it can be compared to Silicon Valley or the Boston Hi Tech Zone, but given time, it can be an important area for research, especially in the support of military installations and civil transport. And now the airport; what would airports like LaGuardia, JFK and O'Hare give to have this much room to expand? Think about the excruciating work the O'Hare Airport Agency had to do just to get one runway expanded. Bay County Airport has a mission to be the "model" airport for passenger and freight usage, for security, transportation to and from, environmental and noise pollution abatement and for passenger friendly airport amenities. In 2004, 400,000 people used the existing facility. Traffic is expected to grow to 600,000 in 10 years. To me, the estimates sounded overly conservative but even at that, you are talking about a 7% average growth rate in expected traffic. I spent some time inside the "old" airport and it was nicely designed, efficient and clean looking, but unfortunately, the airport has a major design flaw; it is in a flood zone and even more importantly, cannot expand the runways. Although the FAA gave the airport authority several years to fix the runway and buffer area length, the airport authority would have to buy a very large number of homes and businesses and also redirect or re-engineer a major roadway that runs north of the airport. So a new site became imperative. The new airport will be located in an area that is primarily field and wooded area that surround West Bay. Along the shore of West Bay is a marshy area that serves as a breeding area for shore birds. The new airport will be sited to minimize the sound of jets as they make the approach. When you look at the layout map, you will see that the brown area (woods) and green area (naturally maintained lands) make up the greatest parcels surrounding the airport properties. Even the housing sites (yellow) are planned to have minimal impact on the natural life of the area. The runways will be 10,600 feet to satisfy wide-body cargo aircraft. While the airport developers recognize that the passenger traffic does not justify wide bodies at this time, the location of Bay County Airport, only an hour in the air past Miami, gives it a real competitive advantage in getting trucks on the road to southeast cities. Clearing cargo at the new airport will be much simpler and you are getting a jump start to I-10, I-75 and I-95. If all goes well, the first shovel goes into the ground in May of this year and the new airport is expected to be operation in 2008.

company. What to me was remarkable was how Ralph would roll up his sleeves and pitch-in when the occasional problem required hands-on, not a "suit". The number of people he helped would stretch the length of Runway 13/31. JRS has always supported our JFK community, whether it was KAAMCO Cargo, the Chapels or the Chamber. We thank Ralph's family for lending him to us and share their sorrow at a life taken far too early.

JFK Airport welcomes Father Gerard Walker to Our Lady of Skies Chapel in Terminal 4. Father Walker is the Catholic Chaplain replacing Father Devine. We all wish Father Devine our best wishes for his many years of dedicated service to the airport community.