Kelly Air Force Base, one of San Antonio’s economic and community lynchpins, was closed by the Department of Defense more than two decades ago.
The closure did not signal the end of the aerospace and aviation innovation in San Antonio. Port San Antonio, the research campus that has taken over the old military base, continues to grow as a hub for employment, technology and aerospace.
That was the subject of Friday’s episode of the bigcitysmalltown podcast. Host Bob Rivard talked with local leaders who have focused on Kelly Air Force Base and its transformation into Port San Antonio ahead of an event honoring local aviation and aerospace industry leaders.
Kelly Air Force Base had been hugely important, Rivard noted, bringing jobs and resources to San Antonio and helping the city build a strong Latino middle class.
Tullos Wells, a local attorney, helped lead efforts to keep the base open in 1993 and 1995, when a congressional committee was examining Department of Defense expenditures. The closure was announced in 1995 and took place over a six-year period, until DOD funding was officially suspended in 2001, Wells said.
“The entire community felt it. We knew what it meant, whether we worked there or had family who worked there,” he said.
Wells said city leaders worked hard to pivot and look to the future at the site. Community members came together to create a commercial and industrial space, now Port San Antonio, that today hosts dozens of companies and more than 19,000 jobs.
“It is amazing and it didn’t happen by accident,” he said. “Our message was, ‘You come, you continue your work here or you bring your work here and we’ll give you a deal.’”
Boeing and StandardAero are two of the larger tenants on the campus, but other businesses have taken advantage of the robust aerospace industry and put down roots.
Local foundations are trying to support the industry by building educational opportunities for youth.
Christopher Mammen leads the Dee Howard foundation, which honors aerospace industry leaders in San Antonio and creates educational opportunities for local students.
“Our purpose and our mission is centered around making sure they know what the industry is about,” Mammen said.
Mammen and Wells were joined by Kathryn Bolish a program manager with the Wex Foundation, a Port San Antonio-based organization that also runs programs focused on educating local elementary and high school students.
The programs equip students with resources and access to cutting edge technology. But it’s also involved in cutting edge initiatives.
Mammen discussed the vertiport, a hub for electric aircraft that can take off vertically and fly people to local destinations. That kind of service could be available in the next decade, he said.
“It is already scouted out on the grounds of Port San Antonio. Testing will happen in the coming years,” Mammen said. “The technology is there and it’s ready for us. We have to figure out how it molds into our normal transportation opportunities.”
Bolish works with Astroport along with the Wex Foundation. She discussed several projects connected to Lunar explanation and construction.
That includes mapping and examining lunar caves with the Wex Foundation and a NASA educational program. There are complex cave systems under the moon’s surface, she said, that could be suitable for habitation.
Astroport also works on creating bricks for construction using lunar regolith, a layer of dirt on the moon’s surface.
Those programs involve working with local students and getting them involved in the aerospace industry and the technology involved in aviation and space work from a young age.
“We need the brains of everyone who cares about space and has that passion to go to the stars,” Bolish said.