Kevin Price - Chief Development Officer of the Wheeling-Ohio County Airport

Kevin shares his vision for the airport, how RED can help in the development, and more in this latest episode.

Episode Transcript

(00:16):
Welcome to another episode of CEOs youShould Know. I'm your host, Mike
Coward, vice president of Membership,Events and Education at the Wheeling Area Chamber
of Commerce. You can hear allof the CEOs you Should Know at our
website if you click Wheeling Chamber dotCom over to the media tab, down
to podcast and there are all ofour podcasts that we are currently doing.

(00:39):
And we are sponsored by West BANKOand West Virginia Northern Community College. We
are in partnership with iHeartRadio Wheeling whodistributes this and we record with them,
and it's a great setup that wehave. We are pleased to be the
presenter of CEOs you Should Know TodayI have my first CDO Chief Development Officer

(01:00):
and his name is Kevin Price fromthe Regional Economic Development Partners collaborating with the
Wheeling, Ohio County Airport. Kevin, Welcome to CEOs you should Know,
even though you're a CDEO. Yeah, exactly, Thanks, Mike. I
appreciate it very much. Here.Thrilled to have you because there's so much
to be talking about. We're excitedyou are in the valley. I won't

(01:21):
say just in town, because you'rein the valley man like we are.
We're working a region here, Ithink, and what I have found and
love to talk about is, especiallyif you're talking with the oil and gas
folks and the energy folks, theydon't see three states. They just see
a region. And what I seeas Wheeling and kind of even our little
Highlands area up there. We sitright in the heart of it of that

(01:42):
tri state region and we're excited aboutit. So we'll be hopefully doing more
CEO interviews within that region as well. But Kevin again is the Chief Development
Officer for Aviation. I forgot thatpart. I wouldn't want you to fly
away here. Yeah, exactly.Well, tell us what that title means,
and we're gonna go oo ooo wayback in history and talk a little
bit. Well, that title meansthat the Regional Economic Development Partnership or read

(02:07):
here in Wheeling for this region,made the decision with conversations and in partnership
with the Ohio County Commission to seewhat we could do to attract business development,
whether it be manufacturing, charter business, educational opportunities, things of that
nature to the Wheeling, Ohio CountyAirport. Great well for those that might

(02:30):
not know exactly where that is.Can you give them a kind of description.
You've been here long enough to doable to tell us where it is?
Absolutely absolutely If you just head northon Route two, right up outside
Warwood, we set on top ofthe mountain up there. You make a
quick right off for you two,and then you start up the hill not
too far from there. It's reallynot that far from the river. No,

(02:51):
not at all. It's actually notbeing from the area and having to
GPS things for quite some time untilI learned my way around. We're about
twenty minutes from down. That's notbad, okay. So one of the
things I've learned and just finding out, I guess even one of the reasons
you're here is unlike many other isit a municipal how would we describe this
airport? Is that a this muni? This is not a municipal outports.

(03:13):
It's it's county owned. But it'sa general aviation facility. They used to
have commercial airline service years ago,and after deregulation those things changed. So
now they're any unique position. Ithink, being a large general aviation facility
and having a lot of property todevelop, they're in a great position to
really be able to attract some coolnew business into town. And that's what

(03:35):
I've been hearing talking with you andsome others around the state. Is the
advantage we have is is the land. I mean, not too many airports
have that kind of opportunity. Iguess right, that's true of West Virginia,
as anybody who's spent more than fiveminutes here knows. We don't seem
to have a whole lot of flatland, but the Wheelinghaw Counting Airport is
uniquely positioned on top of that mountaintoo. We have a lot of land

(03:57):
that won't take a lot of earthmovement to get prep for development for new
industry, things of that nature.So we're in a great position there.
Well. One of the questions Iwant to ask you right out of the
gate, because I know is I'mrunning into people and probably even thought this
way myself. Okay, if there'snot commercial aviation there, why is it?
What's going on? What can evenhappen? Well for starters, it

(04:18):
can really be a great general aviationfacility. Anybody that's been out of And
I just use this because it's geographicallyclose, but Pittsburgh International is a very
busy airport. We are situated closeenough that we could really attract a lot
of general aviation or corporate aviation trafficinto the Wheeling High County Airport. General
aviation can mean anything from recreational flyingto corporate aircraft to as I'm sure we'll

(04:43):
talk about at some point what we'redoing with the universities, with the flight
school, but the type of businessesthat could come there, it's just a
nutshell of that. So people cango, like me, go aha,
The type of businesses that can comethere are manufacturing, specifically edge occational.
I'm trying to think it the bestway to put that. The the the

(05:06):
industry piece of it. From amanufacturing standpoint. For instance, we're talking
to a company that wants to dolight aircraft manufacturing. They're looking for a
place to build roughly a seventy fiveto eighty five thousand square foot facility under
roof and manufacture single engine aircraft.Okay, Well, while yes, the

(05:26):
property is important, even more importantto them is access to the airport.
We have both. We can providethem property at the airport with direct airfield
access to take their product out,you know, from a repair maintenance operation
facility MRO facility, the attraction thereis to be able to build facilities that

(05:47):
can do a range of work ondifferent types of aircraft, from recreational to
corporate style aircraft, even some smallercommercial aircraft, helicopters, things of that
nature. That's another thing that makesus very attractive. And again our g
graphic location, being in the orderof Planhandle, being so close to high
being so close to Pennsylvania and evenbeyond, is a great advantage for us.

(06:08):
So what I hear you saying andwhat I've been learning on this is
it's it's very important for that fourletter word jobs. Absolutely, it's very
important for that four letter word jobs. It's uh, that's the that's the
endgame here. We want to bringjobs to the area. We want to
improve the quality of life for peoplethat are already here. And on the
education piece of it, we wantto do things to not only get students

(06:30):
a great, great education in manypathways of an aviation career. We want
them to have the opportunity to stayat home. You know, we bring
those jobs here, they can godown those pathways and choose to stay here
and you know, work right straightout of their education. Do we have
any kind of projections yet three,five, ten, twenty years has anyone
kind of said or looked on paper, whether it's the county or RED or

(06:54):
combinations thereof. Hey, this iswhat this could mean from an economic development
perspective. We're working on develop beinga ten year plan. There are some
things that have to be updated,not to get two down in the weeds
are too technical. There's some thingsthat the FA requires, even though we're
not the Yeah, even though we'rea general aviation facility, we have to

(07:14):
update some planning processes with them,and in conjunction with that will be developing
a ten year plan. Well good, well, I would imagine they can
stay tuned to the RED website andAirport website just to see when some of
these numbers may eventually come out.I'm going to go ahead and give a
plug too. And now if peoplehear this after October, the meeting will
have already happened. But the EconomicOutlook conference that we have every year,

(07:35):
which is a very exciting thing withDavid McKinley and John Deskins and then a
number of panels, is going tofeature you and some folks from the aviation
area from around West Virginia. Thatis on October twenty six, So if
you want to learn more, goto the Wheeling Chamber website. I think
our registration will be opened by theend of the week. But I'm very
excited to get folks in and talkabout that. And I'm sure we'll circle

(07:57):
back to that. Let me pause, let me go backwards a number of
years, because you're a good oldWest Virginia boy like me. But we
both grew up not that far away, about an hour right around the Ohio
River. And you are from I'moriginally I'm from Canova, West Virginia,
which is about eight miles west ofHuntington. Yeah, still live there right
now. Yeah, so I'm commuting, Yeah, commuting back and forth.

(08:20):
Well, we're glad you are doingthat. So that was that Serena Canova
High School that doesn't exist anymore.It does not. That was part of
the school consolidations the state. It'snow Spring Valley High School was consolidad Valley.
Okay, I can't keep all theseconsolidations together. I remember him as
a kid, you know, growingup in just north you in Pointy Pleasant
So So you did you like me? Did you do those first kind of

(08:43):
eighteen years there? Did you moveanywhere else. Oh No, I'm born
and raised in Canova, West Virginia. Family background goes back a long way
there. I've got two children thatwe're both raised in the area. My
daughter still lives here. My sonand daughter in law grandson are currently in
tech. Like I said, beena West Virginia guy in my whole life.

(09:03):
Just new to the northern panandle Soafter high school what happened? Then?
After high school, attended Marshall Universityfor a period of time, went
to had a couple of different jobopportunities after that, but kind of landed
in aviation a little over twenty yearsago by accident. Yeah, we'll tell
us about that accident. Needed ajob and went to work at Tri State

(09:24):
Airport in Huntington, entry level positionas alignment somebody who works the ramp,
takes care of the aircraft, doesthe fueling, those kinds of things.
Really fell in love with the industry, worked very hard to work my way
up, and after thirteen years there, when I left Huntington, I was
the director of operations, the directorof maintenance, also was the arf chief,

(09:46):
ran our crash fire rescue and didall our environmental control and compliance and
then got the opportunity to go towork at CRW and Charleston Yeager Airport.
Worked there for seven years, startedtheir operations department at that airport, did
that for two years, stood upand ran our general aviation facility at Charleston
Airport for three years, and thenmoved into an executive level management position chief

(10:11):
Development officer there for Yeager Airport.Great, what are you seeing so far
as differences as far as what you'regoing to be able to do here,
what you might not be able todo here versus let's say, Yeager,
what you experience there well, Anda little bit of some of the differences
we've already touched on is the availableproperty at the airport is a huge difference.
Yeager, for instance, is fantasticairport had a lot of great development

(10:35):
opportunities that they're still doing a lotof great things, but they're really running
out of property quickly. Kind ofthe same thing at some of the other
commercial service airports. Huntington's got agreat opportunity with a big track of land
they have that they're working on developmentopportunities down there. But the industry is
so so dynamic, so great rightnow, there are so many opportunities for

(10:58):
everything again from the education piece toresearch and development, to manufacturing, to
repair facilities, things of that nature. The industry just keeps growing and growing,
growing, and it's a perfect timeto really go after those those types
of industries we've even talked about again, not to get too technical on it,
but there's a brand new platform that'sI say, this technology is not

(11:20):
coming, it's here, it's comingvery quickly. But the ev TALL industry,
which stands for electric vertical takeoff andlanding aircraft, that's an exciting new
platform. And there are several frontrunners in that industry that are looking for
places to do manufacturing, research anddevelopment testing because they've moved past, you

(11:41):
know, their Silicon Valley development Californiafor instance, they're looking for places to
build nice Just a reminder you're listeningto CEOs, you should know. I'm
your host to Mike Howard, andwe are in studio with Kevin Price,
chief development Officer for Regional Economic DevelopmentPartners in conjunction with Wheeling High Account Airports.
So maybe even tell us a littlemore how you ended up coming up

(12:03):
here and not technically working for theairport but for reasonable economic development, which
is fabulous. In my mind.Red had already been working with the Aha
County Commission as an economic development armfor the county, and Red had come
to us at my time at CRWand Charleston to look at what the possibilities

(12:24):
were for the airport. They hadseen some of the things we were doing
down there the airport, and Charlestonhad started to do some outreach through an
Ancillary Airports program to help smaller airportsgeneral aviation facilities look for these types of
opportunities. After several meetings with theRED team, the opportunity came about early

(12:46):
this year, in late January earlyFebruary. The discussion turned to, Hey,
would you consider, you know,maybe working for us full time?
We went back and forth on thata little bit and become a Yankee Yeah
exactly and U and then ended uplanding here full time working for Red again
because Red has an economic development relationshipwith the willing High County Commission or excuse

(13:09):
me, the High County Commission andthe High County Commission has been fantastic.
Their support, their vision of wantingto really really tapped this untapped resource with
that airport is extraordinary. All thecommissioners have been extremely supportive to help us
get you know, things we wantto do. I've only been here three

(13:30):
months, so we've we've we've triedto accomplish a lot in three months.
Yeah, that's great. Now wetouched on a little bit. I think
maybe again, one of the advantagesfor this airport maybe is compared to almost
any in the state less maybe youknow somewhere around Martinsburg or something, is
our proximity to Pittsburgh. Sure mentionedagain that what that means for this overall

(13:50):
project to have that one which isprobably less than an hour from up there,
right, Sure, and it's likefive minute flight. Yeah, I
don't know how long it takes tofly well, and it's about forty minutes
by ground from airport to airport.But the proximity to Pittsburgh International does a
lot of things. It opens alot of doors for things like the foreign
trade zone. Pittsburgh International has theCustoms Border Patrol facility that runs the foreign

(14:16):
trade zone for this part of thestate, which makes things like I don't
know how many of the listeners inthis part of the state are familiar with
what Toyota has done in south centralWest Virginia with their manufacturing, but the
Foreign Trade Zone out of Charleston iswhat helped make that possible. Same type
of thing up here, you canreally start to try to bring in some
of those international partners. So that'sa huge attractive piece for that. And

(14:37):
then the piece with Pittsburgh International aswell, that I think will work well
for us going forward. As Imentioned earlier with the General Aviation Services,
we're close enough to Pittsburgh that aswe increase our service level and do more
things for our customers and make ourairport more attractive for people to fly into,
we will be able to attract thattraffic Pittsburgh to some degree with whether

(15:01):
it just be recreational traffic or corporatetraffic. Because we're a much less congested
area to get in and out of, makes it easier for the cost.
Yeah. Well, very good.Okay, So let's go down the road
you mentioned early on about what ishappening between Marshall University, West Liberty University
and you all there at this airportwith Red absolutely very excited about that.

(15:24):
I came to work here, Ithink it was April twenty fourth, April
twenty seventh, we facilitated the firstreally official meeting between the two universities that
West Liberty hosted here and what MarshallUniversity is doing in partnership with West Liberty
University is Marshall is bringing their entireaviation program to the Wheeling Ohaw County Airport.

(15:46):
And people say, well, whatdoes that mean? Yeah, what
does that mean? That means you'regoing to get their professional flight services.
You're eventually going to get their aircraftmaintenance technician programs, their drone development programs,
aviation business management. All those thingswill be done in partnership with West
Liberty. And it's also going tomean an investment in the airport to build

(16:08):
facilities and house equipment and do thingslike that at the airport for the education
piece. Wow. So that isanother exciting thing then for very excited everybody
in the valley. But I alwaysmy mind always goes back to those folks
we have come to our college andcareer for those juniors and seniors that are
starting to look what they want todo. And I'm starting to get a
sense I've seen a lot in myown family that some of these young people

(16:32):
actually would really like to stay aroundhere. Oh. Absolutely, you know,
that's one of the things that evenmy own children, my older son
and daughter in law express was youknow, being able to stay here,
but career paths took them a different, different way and took them all of
state. But we're in a positionMarshall University, and again, I know
this is WVU territory and West Libertyterritory and all those things, but marsh

(16:56):
it's not a football game. It'snot a baseball game. We're not in
petition with one another. And MarshallUniversity, in partnership, even with WVU
and West Liberty and the other universitieseducation institutes in the state have really started
to adopt this all of us approach, meaning the entire state of West Virginia.
President Brad Smith at Marshall University hasbrought that vision day one into Marshall

(17:21):
University and the School of Aviation isjust a piece of what they're doing with
that, but not only the juniorsand seniors at the high school level.
With what we've done. What I'vedone in partnership with Marshall in their programs
in Charleston and Huntington is to yes, that high school level is important,

(17:41):
but we also want to go tothat middle school level. We want to
go to that high school level.And you know, a lot of times
the question is asked, well,how do you get how do you talk
high level education the grade school kids? You don't. You get him the
airport, You show them all thecool stuff, You get the bug and
then you move on. Yea,you know they want to do that.
It spoke to a group exactly,spoke to a group of students of Bridgeport

(18:02):
right after our press announcement here andexplain to those students you can put anything
you want to in front of aviation. You can be an account and you
can be a doctor, you canbe a nurse, you can be a
marketing person. You know, thesemaintenance positions, anything that you can think
of that you wanted to, policeofficers, firemen, any of those things
can take you down an aviation pathway. So it just I think it really

(18:23):
gives the students. It's going togive the students an extraordinary opportunity to stay
here, not only with what we'redoing at our airport, with what's going
on in the whole state. Wasn'tthat long ago that Larry Conway and I
from the Chamber as well, hadlunch with you and we were talking about
a lot of this stuff, andI just wanted you to elaborate a little
more. You mentioned things like,I guess there might be a corporate or
private folks that would fly in,but they need services, they need food

(18:47):
there. Talk a little bit moreabout that, because that's other things that
people probably just don't think of.Oh, sure happened up there. From
the general aviation standpoint and using thatterm very generically, the corporate aviation is
especially to think of it as aconcierge service at a hotel. What can
we do it? It's about,you know, it's about it's literally a

(19:07):
customer service industry. What can wedo for you? You know, whether
that be offer catering services for theaircraft, crew cars for the cruise.
A lot of people don't know thatif a corporate customer comes to the Wheeling
area and has business to do inthis area, his flight crew is going
to be stuck for the day.They're waiting on the boss to get back

(19:29):
to go home. So we wantto offer those services to the crews,
like crew cars, to allow themto take a vehicle, go out and
explore the town, get something toeat, that kind of thing. To
be able to fill high in cateringorders. In my time at Charleston,
we got into, of all things, doing gift baskets for puppies. So
we had some AKC registered breeders inthe Charleston area that people would fly in

(19:55):
corporate customers, general aviation customers topick up new puppies, new family dogs,
and we do gift baskets on requestfor these dogs. So you know,
think of it literally is that hotelcontier service of what can we do
for you? Yeah? Well,what's interesting now, We've talked with a
couple of folks around the state thatare going to be coming up for this
Economic Outlook conference, two very dynamicpeople that are becoming in getting to know

(20:18):
you. I'm impressed with what I'mseeing already, if I use this phrase
just in the leadership style at leastin the state of West Virginia, in
this aviation realm. How have youseen that develop? What have you seen?
What have you learned that? Youknow, we always say that if
I ever did that in my life, I'm never gonna act like that person.
Whatnot. What's kind of been yourexperience coming up through the ranks,

(20:41):
my experience the leadership realm, Yeah, exactly. My experience coming up through
the leadership room is the industry aviationgenerically and even aerospace development, but has
started to work very well together.Uh, there's not. Again, it's
not a it's not a WV.You Marshall football game where you're cheering for

(21:02):
one side or the other. It'swhat we can do to work together to
benefit things for the entire state.And you can take the professional flight for
instance, at Marshall's doing. Idon't have the numbers in front of me,
but the demand for pilots on thesystem, it gets worse every day
because we're not turning out enough pilotsto meet the demand currently, and things

(21:23):
like mandatory retirement ages, things thatnature put strains on the industry. So
I use that as an example tosay, we could put a program like
what Marshall's doing with West Liberty atevery airport in a state of West Virginia
and all of us could stay extraordinarilybusy, not be competing against one other.
That's awesome. So then from aleadership and influencer style for you specifically

(21:45):
over the years, is there oneor two folks family, professor, teacher,
coach, otherwise that you're like,wow, man, if it wasn't
for them, I wouldn't have maybegotten this far or whatever the case might
be. Well, it's certainly froma family perspective of my My mom and
dad are huge influence on me.My mother's retired VP from United Bank what's

(22:07):
now United Bank, and you knowit was the typical story of you know,
mom kept dad from killing yea allthose years. But it's but that
you know that work hard, buildingrelationships, try to be good to people.
I very much believe in the wee, not the eye of how we
need to do things, because youcan't do any of these it doesn't matter

(22:30):
what the industry is, you can'tdo it alone. And I think that
the partnerships that are developing throughout thestate are perfect example of a lot of
other people that think just that.But you know, it's my parents definitely,
uh, definitely a huge influence.And you know, from a from
a professional standpoint, directors that I'veworked for at different airports have been a

(22:55):
big influence. I had some greatleadership, the current leadership at CRW and
Charleston Dominic Crenary huge influence on thingsthat are going on with me. Dominique's
been great in the industry. Herpredecessor, Director Nick Keller, was just
fantastic to work for. Nick's theone that brought me into Charleston. And
you get to learn a lot ofthings, and you learn some things you

(23:18):
learn from your mistakes. Love.I was going to even bring that one
up. Is there some things toughlessons she scrapes elbow scrapes that you've learned
that you would pass on and say, you know, this is something I
learned that absolutely someone else can avoidit. And I think one of the
biggest things that I've learned is alwaystry to think through whatever the subject is
thoroughly and try to anticipate unintended consequences, whether that's just even asking a regulatory

(23:44):
question or don't ever assume in aregulatory setting or things like that. I
always try to assume those unattended oralways try to take into consideration those unintended
consequences, because that's learned a couplelessons the hard way. So, oh
yeah, I I've probably brought thisup before because it's just one of my
favorite things that I learned from oneof my mentors, Bruce Bickle in Pittsburgh,

(24:08):
and he always taught feel act thinkor think act feel right. The
problem is most people feel about something, then they think, and then they
act. And it's like, nowyou want to think first. Sure,
and thinking is a big thing thatI think because of just the speed of
life, we've lost that, thespeed of texting and internet and everything else.
But we gotta think, act andthen see how we feel about it.

(24:32):
And that's one of the big thingsI've learned. And it sounds a
little bit like what you're talking,Yeah, I agree with that completely.
It's again learned a couple of lessonsthe hard way with some things, with
you know, kind of thinking,trying to do things quickly, maybe under
pressure to get something accomplished, andnot intentionally skipping steps, but unintentionally skipping
some steps that came back to cameback to bychy, so to speak.

(24:55):
Afterwards. So if people want tofind out a little bit about what's going
on with what you're doing at theairport or what the whole Marshall Westlib thing
is, where's the best place forpeople to go right now? Well,
from a Marshall West Lib perspective,currently the best place to look at the
aviation programs is on Marshall University's website. Okay, just to see what it

(25:15):
already is. See what it alreadyis, because what already exists with what
Marshall University has done, the otherpart of the state will be what's coming
to this replication in US Exactly.It's technically a satellite program, is how
Marshall University is approaching this. Butit's in partnership with West Liberty, and
you know, the aviation programs areextraordinary through the School of Aviation under President

(25:41):
Smith's leadership. And then the school'sname namesake Bill Know For people that don't
know. Bill Know is the formerCEO of net Jets, which is a
Berkshire Hathaway company which is one ofthe largest private charter companies in the world.
And he brings a lot of experience, a lot of industry partners,
a lot of stakeholders to the tableand is really changing the way things are
done. There are a lot ofgood schools in the country, but Marshall

(26:03):
is really on track just to bethe shining star with all that and be
the premier school. They're they're reallydoing well. Well, that's great that
we've got them to partner with usabsolutely replicate this here to benefit our value
and benefit our families and kids,right absolutely. And then and then to
kind of expand on that question alittle more work can you see it.
We'll be doing updates. There'll besome updated information on the red website.

(26:27):
We're working with a web developer toget some of that done. We're also
working with the county to get somethings updated on the county side and basically
create an airport page within the county'spage to be able to see some of
those things. And then, asmy children often remind me that I'm a
dinosaur, I'm not a social mediaperson, but I do understand the importance

(26:49):
of it. We're working with apartner to work on social media aspect to
to do, you know, whetherit's you know, the Facebook, Instagram,
things of that nature, to beable to push updates and information out
that way as well. Well.And I know they're like we've had we're
doing events up there, other peopleare doing events. But if someone just
wanted to just come up and seewhat's going on now or see the airport,

(27:11):
do they still do tours what wedo? We still do a lot
of school tours. Our main forpeople that haven't been at the airport.
The main terminal building, which waswhere commercial service was originally housed when the
airport was built in the late forties, is an absolute stunning example. It's

(27:32):
a time capsule. I always tellpeople, I feel like I'm walking into
a Humphrey bogartment. Yeah, it'sincredible. The staff there now, rustysqu
and his staff and then and theOhio County Commission and the County administrator Randy
Russell and all those folks, everybodyhas done an extraordinary job with the preservation
of the history. I mentioned.I've been here about three months earlier.

(27:56):
I see something new every time Iwalk in the door. My office is
at the airport, I'm there almostfull time. I'm downtown a little bit,
but in anytime, anybody wants tojust come up and look around,
if I'm free, I'd be happyto talk to you. If somebody asks
questions. You can get ahold ofus through Red, you can get ahold
of us through the County Commission.We would be happy to do that anytime.

(28:17):
So if you were sitting down withsome aspiring aviation entrepreneurs or whatever,
again, another another bit of advice, what might you throw at them?
There's not a better time to getinto this and and don't don't be I
don't know scared is the right wayto put it. Marshall University, for

(28:40):
instance, does a very good jobof explaining to students that, Okay,
if you go into professional flight,if something happens, if it's not for
you, or something you know,triggers think something that you can't complete the
professional flight piece. There's aviation businessmanagement, there's the maintenance side. There's
going to be some other very specificpathways coming on board, drone development,

(29:03):
things of that nature with Marshall.So don't think that you're locked in if
you get into that. And theother great thing about the school piece that
I'd like to mention that opens thedoor for people who want to get into
aviation in ways that it's never beendone before because the traditional university setting opens
doors for student loans, grants,scholarships. Marshall just brought their first three

(29:27):
athletic scholarships into their professional flight program. Because the program has built enough now
that they have the flexibility and theirschedules for their athletics as well as their
academics. They are now working welltogether. So it's there's a lot of
opportunity there to do those things.So I would tell people, if you
thought about it, come check itout, because it's it's the demand and

(29:51):
the industry is only going to continueto grow. So if you are a
someone that wants to work on airplanesall their life, but they're a wrestler
and you've got a good program withWest Living, might make sense right there,
you go. Well, and thedirector of the aircraft maintenance technician piece
that's based currently at Huntington's Airport evenexplained it to us in a meeting that
a lot of the work that theydo even crosses over because it's the hands

(30:15):
on turban work for turban engines andthings of that nature, crosses over to
the gas industry right in the middleof gas country up here. So you
know, there's a lot of opportunityfor students to do different things. Those
students that are currently enrolled in theprogram at Huntington and I forgot that number,
Mike, forgive me, but allof those students are already under contract
to go to work somewhere soon asthey graduate, and a lot of that

(30:37):
work is right here in West Virginiaand Clarksburg. Now, I think the
job placement is pretty high. Yeah, absolutely it is. Well, my
last question is always my fun oneto ask. I learned this from a
friend of mine that I got starteddoing radio shows and podcasts. I want
you to imagine you're getting a phonecall from the folks says it was Spring
Valleys, the new school right byschool, and they call you up and
they say, Kevin, you're goingto speak at graduation. This bring to

(31:00):
our seniors. What's the one thingif you got to do that you'd want
to tell graduating seniors is definitely workhard, pursue your dreams. You know
that that typical stuff. But ifyou've ever thought about because I'm so passionate
about this industry, which I'm surethat that that speech would include this industry,

(31:21):
but if you've ever thought about aviationor airspace, there's not a better
time chase it down, go afterit. There's more opportunity now for students
than there ever has been before.These university programs open up a lot of
these as I mentioned before, traditionalwhether it's scholarships, traditional funding sources,
student loans, grants, things ofthat nature. There's never been a better

(31:44):
time to chase these dreams. Andyou know, right out high school is
definitely a time to do it.Awesome you've been listening to CEOs. You
should know. I'm your host,Mike Howard. Our guest has been Kevin
Price, chief Development Officer or theRegional Economic Development Partners, working in conjunction
with the Wheeling, Ohio County Airport. Our sponsors are West Banco and West
Virginia Northern Community College. Kevin,we appreciate your time. Thank you so

(32:07):
much pleasure being here. I appreciateit one all right, We'll see you
next time on CEOs. You shouldknow