Exciting partnerships at WSU
Seven years after the layoffs started, it’s clear that Wichita cannot count on one employer, one local government or one public-private deal to help it offset the tens of thousands of jobs lost during the downturn.
The rebound and rebranding of Wichita will happen deliberatively but also collaboratively, one hire and expansion at a time.
That realization only stokes hopes for new projects such as the partnership between Wichita State University and Airbus Americas announced Tuesday and the recently unveiled plan to enable the WSU-based National Institute for Aviation Research to expand its testing laboratories at the former Boeing Wichita site.
Plans announced Tuesday call for Airbus to have its own building on WSU’s new innovation campus by January 2017, in a step aimed at creating applied learning opportunities for students and furthering WSU’s international stature as a center of aviation engineering, research, development, testing and expertise.
NetApp and the ABI Group also have committed to being on the innovation campus, planned for what was the Braeburn Golf Course.
It will hurt somewhat to see Airbus’ engineering center and its 400 employees leave Old Town, especially given the looming departure from downtown of many of the hundreds of state employees that have been based at the Finney State Office Building.
But it’s exciting to see a global aerospace giant such as Airbus sign on with WSU’s new campus – all part of WSU president John Bardo’s aggressive vision of the public university as a hub of industry-driven research and technology transfer that can lead not only to professional success for graduates but also to economic growth for the city and state.
Meanwhile, new life is promised for some of the acres of idle space at the former Boeing site, most of which is now owned by Air Capital Flight Line partners Johnny Stevens, Steve Clark and Dave Murfin. NIAR is expanding its testing facilities to 35,000 square feet of the South Oliver site. The deal allows NIAR the space to work with commercial and military aircraft and do full electromagnetic testing while potentially enabling airplane modification companies to expand to Wichita and have easy access to NIAR’s testing expertise as well as an airfield. NIAR already rents the arena at the former Kansas Coliseum from Stevens, who renovated it into a facility suitable for full-scale structural testing. NIAR promises to be not only an anchor but also a catalyst for Air Capital Flight Line’s reinvention of the expansive Boeing property.
These WSU-related projects come just a month after the National Science Foundation ranked WSU first among U.S. universities for industry-funded aerospace research and development expenditures, with $25.3 million in fiscal 2013 in addition to $5 million in state and federal public funding.
Both partnerships point exactly where Wichita hopes to go – to a creative, forward-thinking local economy built on, rather than limited by, the city’s aviation-manufacturing expertise and skilled workforce.
For the editorial board, Rhonda Holman
This story was originally published March 25, 2015 at 8:03 AM with the headline "Exciting partnerships at WSU."