Space Florida's Board of Directors on Wednesday approved a "conduit financing package" that transferred Lockheed Martin's remaining debt and the lease on Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station to United Launch Alliance, a company formed in 2006 as a merger of launch operations between Lockheed and The Boeing Company.The action was urgent because ULA must soon negotiate a new lease with the Air Force and could not proceed with Lockheed's name on the paperwork.
Space Florida interim President Frank DiBello said the move helped sustain employment in the space industry, but added that the 750 ULA jobs at the Cape were not rescued by this action. On Tuesday, however, the agency had represented the routine financial deal as a job saving measure.
"Essentially we changed out the financial organizations involved," said DiBello, who took the agency's helm a month ago. "So there were a series of loan agreements and lease transfer documents that had to be put in place."
DiBello said the financial effort showed how quickly the agency could respond to a request for assistance.
"It was a display of the rapidity and effectiveness of the tools we have in our (Florida) statue," DiBello said. "It was a display of responsiveness to the industry when they had a need."
The directors also approved DiBello's 90-day contract, which had been approved earlier by the executive committee. The previous president, Steve Kohler, resigned under pressure, after a controversy over his hiring of lobbyists to which he had personal connections.
DiBello cited four priorities: a new vision for Space Florida, restoring faith in the agency, stepping up business development and investing the agency budget wisely.
The agency, however, faces several retrenchments:
1. Development of Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, which was scheduled for $50 million in state-funded renovations despite a lack of customers, is on hold until a launch customer with a viable rocket appears. "What we don't want to do is have a pad sitting there without a customer," DiBello said.
2. Control of the 50,000-square-foot Reusable Launch Vehicle hangar at Kennedy Space Center will be returned to NASA after Space Florida spent $1.8 million on improvements to attract commercial clients.
3. And tenants for the state-owned Space Life Science Laboratory are needed after NASA transferred $35 million from the lab's funding to the Constellation project. "The reason the funding was removed was they wanted to accelerate the construction of Constellation, and we want them to do that because we're losing a lot of jobs," state Sen. Thad Altman (R-Melbourne) said.
10 comments:
Milk it Baby, Milk it!
Milk that Glorified Welfare Program for all it's worth and then complain about Socialism.
Too funny!
It may very well be a welfare program, but at least the workers have to show up every morning and do something!
Good to see a private company creating good jobs for our family, friends and neighbors to do good work that is critical for the economic health of not only the county but the entire country..... even if some dumb swamp trash doesn't quite "get it".
Those who call it a glorified welfare program are just jealous because they couldn't land a good paying job like the ones at KSC. We work very hard- could you launch humans into space...doubtful.
Someone said:
"Those who call it a glorified welfare program are just jealous because they couldn't land a good paying job like the ones at KSC. We work very hard- could you launch humans into space...doubtful."
To translate that a bit to reflect reality:
Those who call it a glorifed welfare program are just jealous becaue they didn't have mom or dad to bring them into the high paying jobs at KSC that they could never qualify for in the normal job sector on their own.
You are right, no doubt, that some did have mom or dad's help to land that KSC job. However there are plenty of us who spent many years gaining experience in the private sector and/or military as well as obtaining Master's degrees and higher in areas of study you couldn't even begin to understand. We certainly did earn our high-paying positions and are happy to help support the economy by hiring uneducated, jealous, minimum wage-earning losers like yourself. We can get a high-paying job anywhere in the country. Hows about yerself, Jeb?
Considering that AIG got over 100 billion....shut up everyone!
Most of the counties unsmart, work out at KSC. Wait until they layoff, and see if those workers translate into the private sector.They're lazy uneducated military personel
"Space Florida sets up $100 deal "
That won't go far!
my husband worked years and years to even get into ksc.
It does provide countless jobs and that in turn has a knock on effect for the area. Which is a good thing. Those who doubt it obviously werent around the last layoff when the area practically died and people had to walk away from their homes.
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