The Tulsa region is poised to be a national leader in the advanced air mobility sector.
That was a takeaway from Daniel Plaisance, who provided the keynote address at the Tulsa Regional Chamber’s Aerospace Council meeting Nov. 10 at the American Airlines maintenance base.
Plaisance heads the advanced air mobility portfolio at Tulsa Innovation Labs (TIL), a nonprofit organization focused on economic development.
The U.S. Economic Development Administration last year awarded the Tulsa region a $38.2 million grant. The money will be used by a Tulsa-based coalition of organizations from the government, nonprofit, academia and private sectors – including TIL and the Tulsa Regional Chamber – to create the Tulsa Regional Advanced Mobility (TRAM) Corridor. The Indian Nations Council of Governments (INCOG) is leading the coalition.
“This is the greatest period of aerospace innovation and mobility innovation since the invention of perhaps the jet engine, perhaps the internal combustion engine,” Plaisance said at the Aerospace Council meeting. “For the first time in decades and decades, you really have a sea change in the underlying technologies that are enabling how we think about mobility and aerospace in particular.”
Plaisance was introduced by American Airlines’ Chase Beasley, who provided an overview of Tech Ops-Tulsa, a 3.3 million-square-foot plant that began operations in Tulsa in 1946.
Elizabeth Osborn, senior vice president of government affairs at the Chamber, gave an update on the Chamber’s OneVoice initiative.
The meeting was sponsored by OU-Tulsa.