Grant infusion expected to boost airport

An investment by the federal government at the Cloquet Carlton County Airport is helping a local business. As a result, that business will be making its own investments with increased staffing and offerings at the local airport.

That's exactly how the "opportunity zone" grants are supposed to work, said Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, after announcing last month that the department's Economic Development Administration was awarding a $1.2 million grant to establish an aeronautics workforce training center and a new hangar at the Cloquet airport to support the region's emerging aviation industry. The EDA grant, from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Opportunity Zone program, will be matched with $291,718 in state funds and $14,464 in local money.

The private part of the public-private partnership in this case is Venture North Aviation. President and general manager Bill Stone gave a brief overview of his business, which has been based at the Cloquet airport for 11 years, showing growth every year, he said.

VNA will lease a new hangar and office space, and Stone plans to invest an additional $600,000 into aircraft and maintenance equipment and "many, many good-paying jobs" to support its growth at the airport.

Stone said his business will expand in six areas of operation as a result of the investment. Those include offering more accelerated flight training, increased aircraft maintenance and hangar services for Venture North customers, increased fire detection services, on-demand charter passenger and cargo operations and corporate aircraft consulting and pilot services.

Stone said accelerated flight training courses have been in high demand, and customer wait time is averaging about five months for pilots from across the United States, even Alaska and Hawaii. Venture North offers five-day commercial pilot certification, instrument ratings courses, flight instruction, seaplane ratings certificates, instructor certification and more.

"We can reduce the wait time down to two months by adding additional instructors and pilots," Stone said.

Those trainees don't spend money just at Venture North, he said. "Venture North reserves its customers an average of 150 nights a month in hotels here in the Cloquet-Carlton area," he said, adding that the average stay per customer is 7 to 10 days. "That number will likely double when we add new headcount to support our training programs."

Current space at the airport doesn't meet storage or maintenance demands at Venture North, Stone said. "Once a new facility is in place, Venture North will add new full-time maintenance technicians to support this expanding service center and expanding fleet." The new hangar will also allow customers a place to store planes - including larger planes - especially in the winter months. Additional planes will allow Venture North to bid on more aerial fire detection contracts for northeastern and east central Minnesota, with services based out of Cloquet.

Stone also talked about workforce development and professional career paths, pointing out that VNA provides hundreds of hours of flight training to professional and non-professional pilots every year.

"Some of these pilots choose to go on to become professional commercial pilots for the airlines or corporate flight departments around the country," he said. "Venture North is a career path resource for companies like SkyWest airlines and regional airlines that need qualified pilots."

Venture North placed six former employee pilots into regional airline pilot jobs in 2019.

A hangar just north of the soon-to-be construction site played host late last month to a crowd of local and federal dignitaries and others who worked to secure the grant money.

"2020 has been a pretty depressing year with Covid, fires and hurricanes, but now we're getting some exciting positive news here in Carlton County," said Carlton County commissioner Gary Peterson. "This will provide an economic shot in the arm, and provide needed ... jobs."

District 11A State Representative Mike Sundin said the investments will make Carlton County less vulnerable to disasters like the flooding in 2012, 2016 and 2018 or even a pandemic, because of the "vital" transportation and communication that will come with the expansion.

"I hope we can utilize the next facility over there to enhance the economic opportunity here in Carlton County to diversify a little bit so we're more resilient as far as the next catastrophe or adversity comes around," he said.

"It's great to see local, state and federal working together to help an area come back from a struggle," District 11 State Senator Jason Rarick said.