Business View Magazine | December 2020

317 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2020 to help raise the median income and improve quality of life through offering many amenities, including the use of the Albertville Regional Airport. The airport currently houses 60 planes and runs about 10,000 take-offs and landings every year. According to Cofield, “We know business people are busy and need access to their manufacturing sites easily, which is why an industrial and 25-acre innovation and technology park is adjacent to the airport. We’ve got six corporate jets based here, those are part of the manufacturing industry area of Albertville. The airport is not here, solely, to make money, it is here to attract those people who fly jets and who create employment for the area. If we’re doing our job, then we have jets, and we have the corporate people who use them doing business out in the park. These are industry and manufacturing jobs, great for the local economy.” Albertville Regional Airport employs many people through its subsidiaries, including an aircraft maintenance company, and an aerospace engineering firm with 40 employees in a 100,000 square foot space. The airport has 43 hangars and they are in the process of building eight more in the next 18 months. The intention is to continue building, but they’re using up existing land quickly enough that the FAA and the Alabama Department of Transportation approved a plan to move the state highway about a quarter mile away to give the airport more room to grow. More hangars are important so we can grow on the other side of the airport,” says Cofield. “In actuality we’ve got half an airport now because we can build on only one side. Once we get the highway moved, now that it’s an approved project, we can build inside the loop that’s created.” Albertville Regional houses The Aviation College at Snead State’s aircraft maintenance program, a two-year certification program that trains students to navigate mechanical, electrical, and technical problems with aircraft, as well as welding and much more, with plans to expand in the near future. Cofield is very proud of the    ALBERTV I LLE , ALABAMA