Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth recently announced Southern Illinois Airport will receive 2 point 1 million dollars for a ramp extension project.
Wes Perkins is the vice president of Crucial MRO. He explains the need for their growth at Southern Illinois Airport, "I would like to see two more of these hangars like I have now sitting here right next down the line here, a four hangar campus on the airport. Looking 250 employees strong at least."
Crucial performs maintenance and repairs of commercial aircraft over 12 thousand 500 pounds. Right now they perform this work in two hangars, but are out of space.
At the beginning of October, Senator Tammy Duckworth announced 2.1 million dollars will be disbursed to the airport through a Congressionally Directed Spending Request. Airport Director Alyssa Connell says they've had plans in place waiting for these funds, "It's a critical piece of infrastructure because they want to get to work and they want to do business as usual. And SIU wants business as usual. Everybody wants to show up here and do a good job. And so able to take a piece of grass and turn it into a piece of ramp really actually becomes a part of a bigger picture of they get to safely grow and we get to safely operate."
Connell is excited to see growth continue at the airport and strengthen the community, "It's a pretty neat thing to be able to be part of something that was probably just a table talk conversation decades ago. And here we are realizing dreams and then helping a new set of people make them come true."
For Perkins and Crucial, this growth is a commitment to the success of the southern Illinois community, "You know, not only that, it just gives people a good occupation, a good living, you know? I mean, Not only do we work on airplanes, I have tons of support roles and everything else behind the scenes and in front of the scenes, actually, that gets this job done. So it's a good impact everywhere."
Connell expects they'll begin work on the ramp in early 20-26. Once the ramp work is completed, Perkins says work on the buildings will take about 12 to 18 months.
