Little retires from Airpark director role after 18 years
A chapter has closed for Colonel Jim Little, former Airpark Director for the City of Big Spring. A retirement celebration was held Tuesday afternoon, in the airpark terminal, to celebrate and honor the 18 years of service Col. Little had with the City of Big Spring.
“For 18 years Jim Little has been our Airpark Director and I don’t care where you look at the airpark you will see Jim’s signature on it anywhere you look,” City Manager Todd Darden said. “We are here today to celebrate Jim … he will be sorely missed by staff and administration, but I am sure he will be actively involved in the many volunteer efforts he’s involved in.”
While there is a long list of projects that were launched and completed during his tenure, one of his most notable is the improvements of the runway in 2011. Through the support of the Big Spring Economic Development Corporation and Col. Little’s leadership, the primary runway was renovated
to instill a longer life.
“For the airport the biggest accomplishment was the reworking of the primary runway. It was converted from asphalt to concrete giving it many years of life for airplanes landing in Big Spring, bigger airplanes in our expansion. It carries into the fact that as we grow and increase the amount of traffic and the type of planes we would like to have land here we can be accommodating. It will add to the business and aspect of tourism in Big Spring,” Col. Jim Little said.
The industry growth in Big Spring is connected closely to the airpark and the connection it brings for importing and exporting. The City of Big Spring has quality roadways, the interstate in and out – in all directions, along with the airpark. As Col. Little mentioned, for a town the size of Big Spring, the capability for transport with the inclusion of the airpark leads to a lot of development potential.
“The airport, in my opinion, still has a tremendous amount of potential,” Col. Little said. “There is no end to the development I see it can do. There are some interesting challenges with the buildings on the airpark – built in the 40s.”
Upon arriving in Big Spring, Col. Little had retired from two other career ventures, including his time in the United States Air Force. Serving his nation and serving his community is one of the foundations of his work.
“… I made a decision, based on the investment that the government had given to me with my training I decided I still had something I owed the country,” Col. Little said. “I stayed in and got involved in a very interesting career field, and then when I came here a similar thing happened here … they asked me if I wanted to run for the position, I said yes, and well, here we are 18 years later.”
While serving as airpark director, Col. Jim Little was nominated for and was the recipient of the General Aviation Airport Manager of the Year award. The nomination highlighted the numerous accomplishments, in addition to the runway renovations, such as his contributions in the building of the Mcmahon/wrinkle Airport Air Terminal – built in 2001, his maximizing the usage of the facilities located on the old Webb Air Force Base grounds bringing it to an occupancy rate of 95%, helping to establish the Hangar 25 Air Museum honoring the historic past of the Big Spring Bombardier Base/ Webb AFB. In addition to the physical additions and support of the airpark, Col. Little was also instrumental in drawing visitors to the airpark with the Prairie Dog Fly-in, the Hang Gliding and World Championship which brings hundreds of people to the airpark, as well as the Young Eagles Flights.
According to Darden, the Airpark Director position has been posted and is an active search.
The goal is to have the position filled by the end of the year, but in the interim a team of city staff, including Darden, will be overseeing operations at the airpark.
“We are blessed to have Jim Little in this community. He chose to build his family and his life here … without him there are some of these projects that may not have happened without him,” Darden said. “We will miss him, and we wish him well.”
As Col. Little steps into his next chapter, he is appreciative of all the support he has been given and is looking forward to having time to travel and make new memories with his family. While he is looking forward to taking more adventures, he is going to continue to reside in Big Spring. He even leaves a piece of advice for the one to follow after him:
“Take advantage of the opportunities that are there.” I’m saying that from a lot of different perspectives. The fact that we have that out there … if we let it sit dormant then it doesn’t do anyone any good,” Col. Little said. “We do have a lot of acreage to work with, intersection of major highways, rail spur … there is no end to the opportunities that we have; it’s just the matter of looking for them and taking advantage of them.”