Aviation View July 2023

44 AVIATION VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 3, ISSUE 2 “So, having the Global TransPark here has been the catalyst of so much economic development in eastern North Carolina,” says Mark Pope, Senior Vice President of the N.C Global TransPark Economic Development Region. “Spirit AeroSystems came first and that was kind of the start and spark plug of creating economic development and job creation – it spurred a lot of growth, and a lot of attention to our surrounding counties, and what we discovered was that we all have that same vision and the same interest in creating jobs. The global aerospace industry is really in a growth position right now and we are concentrating on that segment,” Pope describes. “If you look at it, those aerospace jobs and wages pay over two times the average wage of the counties in this region,” Pope adds. “So that’s a huge impact just on daily life. We are 75 minutes from Raleigh, and that used to pull people away from here, but now