Business View Magazine | September 2019

104 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 2019 improvement on the airside for convenience – building connecting taxiways to make the airfield more efficient. In addition, we’re always doing rehabilitation projects because we have so much pavement and it’s a major challenge to keep up with that. We’re constantly trying to get more funding to rehab pavement and refurbish our industrial park buildings, which also date back to the World War II era.” In order to more concisely represent the Airport to the general and flying public, Bartow recently changed its name from the Bartow Municipal Airport to the Bartow Executive Airport. “The level of service that we offer at the Airport, as a full- service FBO and jetport, wasn’t reflected in our name,” Helms states. “Being the Bartow Municipal Airport gives the community the mindset of a small, local, publicly-owned operation, and because we run a full-service, fixed-base operation with executive level capabilities, we wanted the name to reflect that more accurately. So, we changed the name from Municipal to Bartow Executive.” One thing that hasn’t changed at the newly- christened facility is the Airport’s fealty to its military heritage and its history as a training base for pilots. Forty years after the deactivation of Bartow Air Base, a retired USAF T-37 was loaned to the city and the Airport by the National Museum of the United States Air Force and placed on a permanent, static display pylon as a memorial to the former U.S. Army Air Forces and U.S. Air Force presence at Bartow. The T-37 is near the former air base main gate, now the Airport entrance, and the Bartow Air Base Historical Museum occupies a room in the Airport’s main terminal building. And today, the Airport continues its legacy as a primary pilot training facility as it was during WWII. PREFERRED VENDORS n Ewing Blackwelder & Duce Insurance www.ebdins.com n Bartow Economic Development Council, Inc. www.bartowedc.org BUSINESS IS TAKINGOFF Bartow Economic Development Council I N C O R P O R A T E D 510 N. Broadway Ave. I Bartow, FL 33830 863-533-7125 I www.bartowedc.org We are proud to partner with Bartow Executive Airport, impacting economic development far beyond its facilities and the aviation industry, helping fuel unprecedented growth and expansion in Bartow and throughout Central Florida.