“It’s not going to be flying airplanes; it’s not going to be sexy,” he said. “But it’s going to be relevant for the future.”
Wallace said that when the Base Realignment and Closure process began in the 1990s, the local strategy was to develop the Springfield base as a training site for F-16 pilots, particularly from abroad. The announcement in 2007 that the Royal Dutch Air Force would train at the airport seemed a fulfillment of that plan, boosting full-time employment to 491 at the base.
With a downturn in the world economy in 2008, that dream “started going south on us,” Wallace said.
Other nations such as Singapore lost interest in coming to Springfield in favor of the nation’s primary F-16 training site in Tucson, Ariz., which said it has excess space.
With that, Wallace said, the local BRAC strategy “came down like a house of cards.”
Facing a new reality that would have just 115 full-time jobs at the base, area legislators and military staff have “really been pounding the pavement up in Washington” to find a new mission for the base, he said.
Without mentioning how many jobs may be involved, Wallace said, he has “a really good feeling about what’s coming down the pipe.”
In addition, work is nearly complete on a building at the base to house National Guard units in aging facilities on Laybourne Road and Army Reserve personnel on West High Street.
The Lt. Henry Addison Beckley Award, for those who have distinguished themselves in service to their community, nation and state with an emphasis on achievement in aviation, was presented to three people at Monday’s Kiwanis-Rotary Military Affairs luncheon:
• “Howdy” Weber, who was serving as a waist gunner on a B-17 when his plane was shot down off the Dutch Coast. Weber became a community fixture as photographer for the Springfield News-Sun.
• Ray Griswold, who served with distinction in the Army Air Corps, then stayed in the U.S. Air Force, served a tour of duty in Vietnam and became a smiling member of the Springfield Kiwanis Band.
• The late Dr. Wesley Edward Knaup, a World War II Navy veteran who became an accomplished general aviation pilot during a lengthy career as an ear, nose and throat doctor in Springfield.
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