Business View Magazine | August 2019

134 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE AUGUST 2019 T here is an airport, four miles southeast of Selma, Alabama, which is fully equipped, but almost empty. It’s the Craig Field Airport, a once thriving facility with an impressive history that, today, lies almost forgotten, and certainly underused. That’s a challenge that Jim Corrigan, a 23-year military veteran and former Delta pilot, and now the Executive Director of the Craig Field Airport & Industrial Authority, and Wayne Vardaman, the Senior Executive Director of the Selma and Dallas County Economic Development Authority, are seeking to take on: bringing the Craig Field Airport back to the glory days of yesteryear. “In July 1940, the City Council, along with the Mayor, bought just under 2,000 acres of land,” Corrigan says, recounting the Airport’s early days. “And then, they leased it for one dollar to the government, which established the Selma Army Air Field. It slowly ramped up as a flight school and, in 1941, they graduated their first pilots. During the World War II time frame, there were 150 aircraft and over 2,500 personnel, and MOVE-IN READY