Business View Magazine | July 2019

129 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE JULY 2019 RANGE REGIONAL A I RPORT effective, so they built their own painting facilities. Then, three gentlemen who were working with them at the time, decided to branch out and create their own company, Midwest Aircraft Refinishing, which they located here at the Airport. They perform custom paint jobs and exterior and interior refurbishment of aircraft. Cirrus refers their aftermarket customers here, but Midwest also includes home-builts, singles, twins, light jets, and turboprops - Cirrus, Cessna, Piper, Beechcraft, Lancair, Epic, Eclipse, Vans, practically anything. They literally paint aircraft from all over the world, as far as Europe, and are known for their in-and- out expertise.” All this economic growth has led to $50 million of improvements over the last decade at the Airport. “We’ve replaced 95 percent of all the pavements,” says Germolus. “We have also replaced the airfield lighting. Then, we had an $18 million terminal expansion, doubling the size of the building. This was necessary because our terminal was a 1974 building and really lacking in terms of our ability to process passengers and luggage. We have added 100 new parking spaces, all of which is the result of a jump in passenger enplanements from 8,000 in 2006 to just shy of 17,000 last year.” The improvements were done with 90 percent of the funding coming from the Federal Aviation Association as well as a $5 million general obligation bond from the state of Minnesota. Germolus adds, “We have another state organization, here, called The Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board, which takes the taconite production of the mines and uses a percentage of the income to offset infrastructure costs in our region. They contributed about two and a half percent of the cost of the terminal project and then, locally, we put in two and a half percent from the Airport.” And there is still work to be done. Range Regional is in the process of updating its master plan and has an improvement project list which tops out at $50 million over the next decade. That work will focus, primarily, on land use and additional hangars, as well as a