Every day, I work with communities that are ready to grow. A region with available land, capable workforce, and a determination to compete. What we often lack are the tools to move at the speed modern industry demands.
That is why the West Virginia House of Delegates’ passage of House Bills 4006 and 4010 is such an important moment for the State of West Virginia.
House Bill 4006 establishes the West Virginia Aerospace Growth Act and creates the Aviation & Aerospace Job Development Investment Grant Program, a performance-based incentive structure designed specifically to attract and expand aerospace investment in our state. It ties incentives directly to job creation, private capital investment, and measurable return on investment. It also creates dedicated utility and workforce development funds so that infrastructure and training grow alongside private industry.
This is disciplined, structured economic development.
House Bill 4010 complements that strategy by investing $75 million into the Airport Hangar Development Fund to support construction of wide-body hangars capable of landing major maintenance, repair, overhaul, and assembly operations at airports across West Virginia. For rural regions like the New River Gorge, this is transformative.
Many of West Virginia’s regional airports already have critical assets: long runways, strategic airspace, available land, and community support. What they have not had thus far is access to the capital required to build large-scale hangar infrastructure. Wide-body hangars are expensive and often the single biggest barrier to competing for serious aerospace projects. HB 4010 directly addresses that gap.
From my perspective in Southern West Virginia, this is exactly the kind of strategy we need.
Economic development today is fiercely competitive. States like North Carolina and Florida have built aerospace clusters through long-term, structured incentive programs paired with infrastructure investment. Those clusters now anchor regional economies and provide thousands of high-wage technical jobs.
West Virginia is now positioning itself to compete in that same arena but with a structure that prioritizes distressed counties and rural workforce participation.
For our region, this is about more than aircraft maintenance. It is about high-wage technical careers for West Virginians, apprenticeship and credential pathways aligned with industry demand, infrastructure improvements that make rural sites investment-ready, and diversifying local economies beyond legacy industries.
The West Virginia House of Delegates deserves recognition for staying focused on an economic development agenda centered on industry recruitment and job creation. These bills are not speculative. They are structured, accountable, and targeted toward sectors with real growth potential.
Now the West Virginia Senate must finish what the House started.
Passing HB 4006 and HB 4010 without weakening their core structure will send a clear message to site selectors, investors, and employers across the country: West Virginia is serious about competing and winning.
Our rural airports are ready. Our workforce is ready. Our communities are ready.
The Senate should act decisively, pass these bills, and send them to the Governor’s desk.
West Virginia cannot afford to sit on the sidelines of aerospace growth. This is our moment to accelerate, to compete, and to build the next chapter of economic opportunity.
Let’s clear the runway.
# # #
Jina Belcher is Executive Director of the New River Gorge Regional Development Authority and Chair of the Board of Directors of the Raleigh County Memorial Airport.
