it's great meant of today isn't it thanks everyone for being here i'm behalf of the west michigan airport authority and its members the city of howland in the city of zealand in part township welcome to the ribbon cutting of our new airplane apron and airport business center i am tim quander chair of the authority board of directors zeal and city manager thank you for joining us today in the traditional public gatherings in west michigan we will begin these proceedings with an invocation the mayor of holland the honorable nancy de boer will offer our invocation this is such an amazing thing to be able to celebrate let's give thanks for having the father we thank you so much for this beautiful day for this wonderful facility for this gateway to the world that we may welcome people as they should be welcomed to the corporate climate that is this region we thank you lord for the perfection and the beauty that you have put together this building give you the glory because every good and perfect gift comes from you we pray lord that we will honor you as we go about our business in this area and that we will be an example to others of what you the difference you make in a community we thank you for this time and for all of these people these kind of relationships do not happen in other places in the world and we want to treasure and grow them we thank you lord for being here and for each person that is represented and each company in your name we pray amen thank you man for that blessing and now invite one of the airports strongest boosters the former mayor of zealand one of my former bosses les hoagland who helped found the airport authority to lead us in the pledge of allegiance in our system of public airports the federal aid he is a primary funding source for runways taxiways navigation aids and specifically today aprons today we are pleased to have with this congressman bill h to offer his words and this great occasion congressman  ah i'm going to speak from the heart here a little bit but first i want to introduce a colleague of mine who is here with me today jim or in a sea of jim you want to put your hand up jim's from that state that has a football team that everybody hates down down a fifty transaction around air and for the record i will tell you i've got both office furniture from both in my offices we have that we have that we're very bipartisan here jim on that when it comes to office furniture but you know this is this is a special place and as jim was commenting to me about you know wow i mean just the diversity of our area and the district and he was very struck by what what he was seeing and sort of the you know the employees in the employers that are represented here today and and what this means it is it is very important as we have that west michigan fingerprints literally not on just michigan's business not on just this this  country's business but the international and the and world business stage it has an impact from right here in west michigan in and and to have city is a place that is is key to all that know it's a place that is used for both business and pleasure we've seen great joy i had i had one of my enduring member memories out here was my my late father he and i took a b twenty four flight out of this that was back a number of years ago then dad had crashed in a b twenty four in world war two and that was the first time he had been in the b twenty four since that crash  did quip that he hoped the landing was a lot better this time and it was that was i came out of that flight and just my my my soul and my spirit was soaring  i also remember welcoming home the body of sergeant price here and many of you were part of that as well as we as we lost a local soldier and as the marines flew that body in this this area has has has seen it all at various times and tulip city has been a part of that and i remember the old trailer before the house with the loot of my kids when i went to when i went to  high school with them all you know the changes that have happened not just here at the airport but in the surrounding area have been amazing and i'm proud to stand behind this project proud to be a part of today's celebration and just say congratulations on all the people that have worked on this i see roger is here roger victory or state representative i'm not sure if amanda or mary is here either of them were daniela but you know this is a this is a all hands on deck kind of effort  when it comes to the local state and the federal government making sure that this is this is happening so thanks for having me today and just we're very pleased that tulip city could could make this expansion and really be the gateway that it is here as we have  visitors coming and going so thanks again thank you i'm going to say bill but officially congressman hayes ingo so thank you now i'm going to direct your attention we're going to go out and we're going to do the ribbon cutting you may all stay here do the ribbon cutting for the airplane apron minute all right i can get your attention again i get your attention again please thank you for your patience i'm not a mare i'm just a city manager so i don't have a ga all right we'll keep the program moving along and again thank you for being here today is a red letter day in the history of the west michigan regional airport which operated for many years under its former name to the city airport we not only dedicate our new apron in this magnificent mid field business center but we celebrate what good things can happen when we worked gether is one island zealand township community it wasn't it wasn't many years ago the airport struggled to find the money to win generous federal and state aviation grants for runways fences lights and all the things necessary to operate a safe modern airport th fire cited community leaders banded together to create the west michigan airport authority which persuaded our residents to authorize the smallest milage allowed by law one tenth of one mil this steady stream of revenue was important realizing this day it provided the basis for winning federal and state support and in the great tradition of our area welcoming generous donations from individuals and businesses which have the wisdom to invest in their community more important know was that the public and private representatives of how and zealand in part township worked together to ensure a bright future for this regional asset and so today we celebrate not only this shiny new building which replaces an embarrassing former airport office not so affectionately known as the old brown ranch house which i'm going to go off script just a second i met ours and they said when they moved in there was my and i said well talking with ron not too long ago i think there was still mice in that house no mice in this building but we celebrate as well the success of regional common goals to help mark this occasion we are honored to have with us today representatives of business and government who worked with your airport board to make this day a reality on the wall immediately behind you to your side in front of you over there on the right by the conference room you'll notice a plaque recording the many who made this day possible our communications assistant is responsible for the design of this fitting tribute to the community support for a shared asset thank you karen for your efforts on the design and for the recognition plank and for all those that contributed to this amazing  progressive architects and engineers who designed the building so for their fine work on the apron another important partner in making this day possible is the state of michigan it's michigan aeronautics beer in the michigan economic development corporation our state government over the years has invested millions of dollars in this airport with us today representing governor snyder in many state officials who supported our airport improvement projects is an  hello everyone isn't this a great pure michigan day it's so gorgeous i love and i'm glad to see you all here i'm the associate director of the office of urban initiatives and also governor snyder's west michigan liaison and a lot of you see a lot of me so thank you for putting up with me at every event and breakfasts and dinner i when i drove in here i actually said wow outloud i wasn't expecting such a beautiful profile and all the glass and windows and to me and i know governor snyder would echo this this this is a not only to the lake shore but to west michigan so a lot of people who have not visited a lot of business people private citizens who have not visited this will be their first view of who we are and that's pretty amazing i hand it to all of you and this is a prime example of the public private partnership and i know we hear a lot about that but this kind of interaction and vision and fundraising is what helps our economy grow and makes our community prosper and i know that this is an important important to governor snyder as well and when i read through the list of partners from herman miller and hayworth and other corporate donors from private citizen contributions the airport authority the michigan economic development corporation the federal aviation administration the department of transportation and i'm sure i'm forgetting something that's an impressive coalition of people to build this vision and get it done and i'm told debt free that represents good stewardship of public private dollars and this type of infrastructure improvement is right in line with the governor's vision earlier this year he established twenty first century infrastructure commission whose charge it is is to come up with strategies on how to modernize all of our infrastructure that's water waste water electricity telecommunications and transportation and it's this kind of work that's propelling us into the future and we know that the public sector can't do it and we don't know wot the public sector did to do it we the public sector doesn't always have the vision it's there to support this type of vision from coming forward the infrastructure commission is also encouraging the department of transportation to really review michigan's aviation needs so that we can  modernize and update all of our aviation infrastructure i just want to let you know that the governor has been committed to aviation during his first term and some of the legislators this that he helped to modernize the structure aviation fuel so that more revenues could be dedicated to infrastructure like this and so for our economy to move forward we need we need that kind of support as well well it's it's well planned visionary collaboration like this that keeps michigan moving forward it's why were the come back say it's why we're going to keep coming back and moving forward and michigan is always a leader in that regard so on behalf of governor snyder thank you for all your collaboration your work and your  your business and propelling the economy forward and near the way you provide for your citizens thank you senator tonya shoemaker and who could not be here today and former representative joe have women whose legislative efforts won an economic development allocation for our new building state aviation officials have often remark thank you tim it is fun to be here before i share a few thoughts on what this space in this building means to our organization i would like to acknowledge someone knowing it took a whole team and different stakeholder groups but greg if you come up for a minute come it took a lot of stakeholders that i'm going to touch on a minute to make this happen you've already heard about and today they're up on the wall but it also takes a leader to drive a project home and it takes a visionary and for this project that gentleman has great robinson and for those many of you know him but for those that don't he served as assistant city manager in holland from one thousand nine hundred two to two thousand and fourteen and in that role he already began to move this project forward by being the primary advocate within the city in the primary connector or ambassador to this program in twenty fourteen as he became the manager of the west michigan airport authority he continued that vision in terms of what this space could be he was a visionary in bringing stakeholders together beyond the different governmental entities in terms of the different individuals and the different groups that needed to make this happen and then he also helped project lead it and did a lot of the technical work in the heavy lifting around the grants and so for all of those reasons i'd like to again just greg and say thank you thank you  i'm going to touch on three items one is a sense of teamwork the second is connection and the third is first impressions this is been a great day for me and i started it out at seven thirty it works with a good number of you but not all of you and  we had a community gathering of business leaders nonprofits and we talked about getting students ready for school and the fact that a unique program started here in west michigan with bruce last on the order for school folks and funnyman and he said well what's the connection to an airport authority in transportation right well that first idea is teamwork and we've talked about it a lot but we're doing unique things in west michigan and the reason is as we approach things from a win win proposition whole stakeholder system a lot of trust has been built up over the years between different stakeholder groups citizens government nonprofit businesses and others and that trust is precious and we have to continue to nurture it not take it for granted we can lose it in a second but it served us very well and i shared the soaring that when we bring people in from around the world to work at hayworth that were born and raised here it reminds me that it is unique as i grew up here sometimes i assume that everybody else works the way we do and i've learned it's not the case and that's reinforced when i travel around the world so i want to congratulate all the stakeholder groups here and celebrate particularly the kurds in the vision of the three local governmental entities city of zero and so the of highland park township it takes courage to share the burden of shared resources when you don't necessarily have to it's the right thing to do but it doesn't happen enough so for those three entities to put that forward was great and not only didn't allow this to occur but you know we're bringing back a portion of what we sent of the state of michigan of course we sent of the federal government so i'm glad that the federal government entities and the state entities work with us i'm really really proud of those three entities because if that mechanism of the regional airport authority hadn't been put into place in the one mil we would be able to get some of the taxpayers in the resources that we send away back to our own community so i want to say thanks for the teamwork second is this idea of connection and just touched on it right the world is a crazy place change is happening all over and we need to connect to the world so we need to bring west michigan zealand the townships hauen businesses to the world we have things to learn by going there and more important we need to bring the world back to holland and we're not the easiest place to get to drive in commercial from some locales around the world and so this is going to help some of those very important decision makers potential new talent potential investors to come here easier so we're connecting and we need to do more of that and that's important and the third and final area i want to touch on is that that idea of first impressions again and talked about right you've heard the old saying you  get a second chance to make a first impression and how different is this impression than what we had before it's something we can be proud of it's a sense of place it's something we're doing throughout west michigan i just was in zealand having a great meal a few weeks ago into a think of how the change since when i lived there right out of college in the one thousand what was that ninety eight that city should be really proud and we're seeing that throughout throughout our area you know winston churchill said very famously in the business that i'm in your place and space are what we do that people form buildings and buildings form us and i think we should be really proud about this in terms of how it'll us today and into the future and i think it's going to form our visitors the newcomers to our area and ourselves into a place that's going to give us a brighter future so i think we should all be proud thank you for all the different stakeholder groups and what you've hayward for those thoughtful words thanks for the contributions to the business center the apron and then pass projects to like the runway in the tunnel project to standing another great corporate contributor to this airport is the herman miller company with every airport project we have had undertaken in the last fifteen years in good times and difficult ones herman miller has contributed time talent and treasure to our airport it is a pleasure to welcome herman and miller's chief financial officer jeff stutz to help us celebrate today just well good afternoon everyone it is a true honor and a privilege to be here celebrating with you on this really terrific occasion is tim said my name is jeff stuff i don't know many of you i served as the chief financial officer at herman miller and it is again a great pleasure i'm here today representing brian walker our c e o linda brand and claudia ct right who run our giving program at herman miller and in fact the entire executive leadership team at herman miller now i could just get up here and say what they said but i am going to pile on a little bit i'm not going to take a lot of your time i want to share a few thoughts of my own around the level of true collaboration in the community spirit that it took to put all of this together and i'll begin by just saying i think it's great we can all come together and celebrate true collaboration and what is obviously a ton of very hard were there was results in something so wonderful for our community so i want to take a moment and pile on a bit and congratulate greg you and your team to the good people of hayworth and everyone of the donors on the wall over there on a job very well done there is no doubt this this airport is a tremendous resource for our business and we're proud to be donors for a number of important reasons to be sure this facility in the end and in this new building will allow us to improve the effectiveness and the efficiency of our business and in turn provide returns to our shareholders and importantly return more to the vitality of this area which is critically important and it's embodied in in what businesses and in western michigan do all the time in a bigger and a better way than many other regions around the country we're very proud of that but we're also very proud of the spirit that this airport represents embodied in a pariah the of community outr activities that take place here things like wings of mercy and youth programs and many many more those of us that live here and have the privilege of living here and spending our lives here in western michigan we already know how special this community is and we now have a regional airport facility that is as beautiful as the region that it serves and i have no doubt it's going to be a great asset to this community for many many years to come so i'll just close by simply saying thank you once again on a job well done thanks to all the donors this is just truly spectacular thank you jeff please extend our thanks to mr walker and the entire herman miller team one of the early pioneers for regional support for this airport is amanda place currently a state representative first  a part township trustee and then supervisor amanda pryce worked to broaden support for airport she couldn't be with us today but wanted to be remembered to you here to deliver her greetings is part township trustee in my pleasure of i drew the short straw and representing the board they made me stand up in front of you to read this from rep price but it's a very heart felt message from amanda dear mr klunder since long before the formation of the west michigan airport authority members of the holland zealand park township communities recognize the importance and key differentiating factors of a business airport in our area to promote and expand business opportunities in west michigan in two thousand and six and two thousand and seven business and community leaders and organizations came together through the facilitation of the makah tala area coordinating council to form the west michigan airport authority under the belief that the airport has a direct benefit to the competitiveness of our area businesses would sustain jobs for our residents and have a positive impact to share in the area it has given me a great sense of pride to witness the formation of the west michigan airport authority in two thousand and seven as a trustee in park township to serve as its first secretary and later as vice chair because i believed then as i do now that this facility adds a dynamic aspect to the success of the business community in the holland zealand park township area i have many fond memories of watching the votes come in during the airport authority election and holland city hall touring the old mobile home that served as the office and learning the ins and outs of the michigan department of transportation bureau of aeronautics and the many meetings at west shore aviation i wish i could be with you today but have a previously scheduled function out of state my heartiest congratulations on the long anticipated airport business center and the aircraft apron project is a beautiful facility and will serve the west michigan regional airport for decades to come best wishes amanda price state you would allow me now to recognize the other members of the board from park township if you just raise your hand we would also like to recognize other dignitaries who joined us on this special occasion today and just let me apologize up front slight anybody it's not our intent but we did recognize just a few that we wanted to point out  roger victory our state representative bred out of what county treasurer jerry hunts bigger part township supervisor bruce loss and query they were  beginning and then obviously mayor nancy de boer from the city of hama thank you all for being here finally it's important to recognize the city of holland former mayors am again extra as well as mayor nancy de boer howland leases the airport property to the authority and prior to the authorities establishment for decades bore the sole responsibility their staff who operate tulip city years service which is our fixed base operator pilots have freely shared their view that tulip city air is one of general aviation service leaders in servicing the aircraft and serving the aviator who use west michigan regional airport in many ways they are the true faces of our airport all right we're almost done now for all those that mention today and many others who were yours for this day i invite you to watch the ribbon cutting for our new overdue business center so if i could mr hayward and armstrong and i had another appointment other state reps and senators as well as our authority board we're going to gather around greg greg's going to be the one that actually cut the ribbon and then i'll say a few final words and then write i was just told that as you have the opportunity if you could come up and sign the ribbon we would greatly appreciate that i'm behalf of the board thank you for joining us today now the michigan regional airport business center and i'm doing that please tour it when you're done or when we're done but just indulge me a minute more as we quickly go off script jim join me please so for those that serve on a board and i don't need this anymore for those that serve on a board or a commission or whatever and mr hayworth already touched upon this there's always somebody behind the scenes that's doing all the leg work keeping things going  im when he was on the airport advisory board as chair and now i've had the pleasure of serving as chair of west michigan regional airport authority that person has been greg robinson so greg and he doesn't so the nice thing is i can't and i think all the board members could speak to this there's never a surprise at any of our meetings and it's largely because of greg so this is a little ironic that this is a surprise for  leader for this board and it's made my job very easy personally though i think at the beginning i said to the city manager in zealand and to watch greg his professionalism his integrity his leadership it's just been a pleasure for me to watch and quite honestly i think it's made me a better city manager and so from the bottom my heart from that standpoint gr hundred million dollars for that top six million for this building four hundred thousand dollars for the security fence ok so we're getting close to thirty million dollars that's a good so the authority board has approved i believe it's an official action official action the permanent name of that beautiful glass conference room you know a reality that will continue to sustain and improve the economic health of this region for generations to come come together on many other projects around here there are so many names on that recognition wall that every time i look at that it is overwhelming to me just to see how many people have touched this project it's a relatively small project in square footage but it's a huge project to the community and from what i can tell to our hearts so i just offer my appreciation to all of you were on the wall all of you who are on the wall who are here today care so much about this airport and what it means their community so thank you very much for your comments i really appreciate it thank you everyone all right that really does conclude our ceremony today thank you for being here again we want to extend an invitation for you to tour your facility thank you