Taking Flight

by Lydia Dishman, first published in SC Biz Magazine April/May 2008

When presidential candidate Barack Obama flew to South Carolina for a stop on the campaign trail, his plane passed right by Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport. Why? Because a more convenient, and discreet, air facility was available. That place was Donaldson Center Industrial Air Park.

Located just three miles off Interstate 85 in Greenville, the air park has an 8,000-foot runway capable of handling any size aircraft, even commercial aircraft. Peter Cevallos Jr., the airport's manager, said Obama's chartered plan was of a size comparable to a Boeing 737, which demanded a long runway.

"We are an FAA-certified airport. We had the right runway, a portable stair and a tower," Executive Director Jody Bryson said, making it sound as though celebrity jets take off and land at Donaldson every day.

Donaldson Center handles more than 48,000 aircraft operations annually, acknowledging that the center been quietly going about its business for 40 years. And business is good.

Aircraft maintenance and modification are the main operations at the 1,400-acre airport, while the swath of 1,200 acres surrounding it is zoned industrial, Cevallos said. Capitalizing on a trend that continues to grow, Donaldson's mix of industrial, commercial and aviation in a designated "park" has served businesses requiring direct access to airport infrastructure and provided a place for general industrial development. Currently, 80 businesses, which include Lockheed Martin and 3M, call the park home.

What makes Donaldson Center so special? Recently, South Carolina's aeronautics division completed an aviation study used to develop a new airport systems plan. The results, said Bryson, were surprising.

"They interviewed 50 out of 60 airports, and Donaldson is totally unique to the state," he said.

The mix of businesses certainly contributes to this distinction, as does the sheer size of the place. Cevallos said that it is the largest general aviation airport, by land area, in the entire state. With such an extensive runway, it has even been designated as one of the few sites for the Space Shuttle to land, should there be a need.

The runway has roots in the military. The U.S. War Department identified a part of Greenville that was mostly rural in the early 1940s to support the U.S. buildup for the war. The development of technology meant that the sod airfields of World War I could not support the new U.S. Army Air Force's planes, so a hard surface runway was constructed. The entire base was complete and officially activated in June 1942 and immediately began training replacement air crews.

Among the first to arrive were the colorful Jolly Rogers, also known as the 90th Bomb Group and the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASP, the first women's unit trained to fly U.S. military aircraft. The other group was the 334th who flew B-25s. They remained in Greenville to train fresh crews. In 1951, the base was renamed Donaldson Air Force Base, in honor of Capt. John O. Donaldson, a Greenville native and World War I flying ace.

After the threat of the Cold War receded, the base was eventually declared surplus, but the field didn't lie fallow for long.

"Someone very clever inserted language in the original documents that established a relationship between the city and county and the military. It said if the military abandoned the site, then the land and improvements would go back to the city and county," Bryson explained.

This was invoked in 1963 when the Donaldson Center came under joint ownership of the city of Greenville and Greenville County. It is managed by the Donaldson Development Commission, a board of seven commissioners that governs the park and directs its mission. Initially, the commission worked quickly to set up all the utilities and purchase a right of way for the Southern Rail line. In less than six months, the entire property and its infrastructure, originally appraised at $10 million, was fully paid for.

Lockheed Martin Aircraft & Logistics Centers, the aerospace support arm of the Technology Services Business Area of the Lockheed Martin Corp. and one of the leading providers of government aircraft services and logistics solutions, is the largest resident of Donaldson Center. In the last five years, the company undertook a major expansion, opening a new four-bay, 107,000-squarefoot maintenance hangar, which includes a 23,000-square-foot annex with associated support space, able to house four large multi-engine aircraft, such as the C-130 cargo aircraft or the P-3 maritime surveillance aircraft.

-Return to News and Events-