Morgan Aircraft co-founder gives update

Mark O’Halloran, co-founder of Morgan Aircraft, made an appearance at a Sheboygan Falls Town Board meeting Jan. 4, to discuss the progress of a planned office complex and aircraft production facility at the Sheboygan County Memorial Airport.

Morgan Aircraft signed a 50-year lease for the planned facility last summer.

The Oostburg-based company is currently finalizing agreements with several financial backers that will allow it to break ground on the ambitious, large-scale project sometime in the spring.

The first phase of the project includes the construction of a $20-30 million office building and aircraft hangar to be used for production and fabrication for prototypes and test planes.

“The office complex will be a three-story, modern-glass, energy-efficient building,” O’Halloran said. “I believe it will be one of the most beautiful and efficient office buildings in the county.”

He said the second phase of the project will include the addition of a full-scale manufacturing and production facility at the airport.

“The first phase will have a relative small impact to the area,” O’Halloran said. “When the second phase gets up and running and manufacturing begins around 2014-15, you will begin to see the impact.”

O’Halloran provided a brief overview of the vertical-lift extremely maneuverable jet (EM-J) aircraft that Morgan Aircraft plans to manufacture at the airport production facility.

“This is a twin jet with lift rotors in the wings that allow for point-to-point vertical takeoff and landing,” O’Halloran said. “This will be marketed to companies that need private aircraft for frequent business travel.

“It is a major upgrade over the Lear jet and Bell helicopter, which are currently used a lot in the corporate travel world,” he said.

O’Halloran said 18,000 U.S. companies currently own private aircraft for business purposes.

“We will be targeting a big market of companies that have major business travel needs,” he said. “Our aircraft will allow business travelers to take off from their corporate headquarters and land directly at the site of their destination.

“This basically takes away the need for airports, cutting down significantly on travel time. However, the aircraft will be equipped to land on runways as well.”

To date, Morgan Aircraft has build and tested nine unmanned small-scale prototypes.

O’Halloran said similar testing will continue for the next several years.

“We will be spending the next three or four years fine tuning the aircraft in preparation for manned demonstration flights, which we hope to do in three years or so,” he said. “We want to take our time to make sure everything is in place, before we risk doing a manned flight.”

Morgan Aircraft plans to add to its eight-person staff soon after breaking ground on its office and testing facility.

“Our first hires will be administrative and design staff,” O’Halloran said. “Eventually we will be expanding to include production staff in our manufacturing department.

“We will be hiring people of all experience levels,” he said. “We have already formed partnerships with local colleges to provide training for the type of jobs we will have at our facility.”

O’Halloran said Morgan Aircraft selected Sheboygan County Memorial Airport as its headquarters, based on a variety of factors.

“We looked at college-entrance test scores from the ACT and other tests, and found that this area excels in that capacity,” he said. “We also found the basic fundamental work ethic to be very high in this area.

“The facilities at the Sheboygan County Airport are top notch, with just the right amount of runway access and space we were looking for. In addition, the company president and CEO, Brian Morgan, is from Oostburg, and his wish was to stay in the area.”

In closing, O’Halloran noted the major tax and employment impact Morgan hopes to make in the area.

“We are looking at hiring 1,000 employees and paying around $560 million in taxes to the state in our first decade of business,” he said. “This is going to be a great employment opportunity for the area. We hope to make a very large economic impact over the long haul.”