Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Morgan Aircraft to take flight at Sheboygan County Memorial Airport (KSBM), Sheboygan, Wisconsin. County Board approves loan for company.

Almost two years after being announced with much fanfare, it looks like the Morgan Aircraft manufacturing facility at the Sheboygan County Memorial Airport will finally become a reality, creating hundreds of new jobs.

The Sheboygan County Board Tuesday night voted to authorize a $1 million forgivable loan from the state to the company to be used for developing the facility where the company will manufacture vertical take-off and landing aircraft.

"This has been an exciting project; a long haul," Morgan Aircraft co-founder and President Brian Morgan told supervisors.

The project was announced in 2009 with the promise that it would generate up to 2,000 jobs.

"This has the potential to be the next Kohler Co. in Sheboygan County," county Administrator Adam Payne said at the time.

But the nationwide economic downturn made a change in plans.

"The recession happened," and financing dried up, said Mark O'Halloran, co-founder and CEO of the Oostburg-based company. "It was purely the effects of the recession."

But since then the company has been able to secure $8 million in financing, he said.

O'Halloran and Payne on Tuesday also credited a more pro-business atmosphere created by Gov. Scott Walker's administration for helping seal agreements on the loan voted on by supervisors Tuesday and on another $5 million in state economic development loans over the next year if the company can secure another $10 million in private financing.

"We are in a tremendous position because of renewed and increased interest on the part of the state of Wisconsin," Payne told supervisors.

Under the terms of the agreement approved Tuesday, Morgan Aircraft will not have to repay the $1 million Community Development Block Grant for Economic Development if it invests $105 million in the project by 2015 and creates 340 new full-time jobs by the end of 2015.

If neither the investment occurs nor the jobs are created, the company is obligated to repay the loan at 2 percent interest.

The funds would be loaned through the Sheboygan County revolving loan fund program and would be administered by the Sheboygan County Economic Development Corp., officials said.

The company has acquired patents for its technology that allows the plane to take off and land like a helicopter but fly like a jet at twice the speed of the helicopter and with a range of more than 1,000 miles.

Potential uses include serving as smaller, unmanned military drones "that can take off from ships, the back of a truck or any unprepared landing surface," Morgan said.

Piloted uses include being used as air ambulances, search and rescue aircraft and as corporate jets that don't have to land at commercial airports.

The plane can carry up to nine passengers, along with a two-man crew.

"It's an entire new class of aircraft," Morgan said.

Morgan said the first delivery of the planes is slated for 2016.

The company said it intends to establish a world headquarters, research and development, and manufacturing facility at the airport in the Town of Sheboygan Falls.

The county has already made $1.3 million of infrastructure improvements to the site, including grading for a new taxiway and apron, as part of a 50-year lease and development agreement with the company.

The company plans on initially building on a four-acre parcel of land at the airport. It has an option to lease an additional 50 acres there.

Source:  http://www.sheboyganpress.com

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