POWERGRAMS

3 Airbus employees led their first completed airliner out of the hangar for initial flight. A320 aircraft production a reality in Mobile," said Allan McArtor, chairman and CEO of Airbus Group Inc. "As part of the team, Alabama Power was always solution-driven when presented with challenges we could have faced as we built the business case." Alabama Power was so involved that final negotiations to seal the deal were held at Corporate Headquarters in Birmingham. "A number of Alabama Power employees were involved in 'Project Hope,' the secret name for the Airbus project during the recruiting phase," said Mike Saxon, vice president of Alabama Power's Mobile Division. Those roles included people from Power Delivery, Corporate Real Estate, Power Contracts and Industrial Marketing. "Specifically, from Mobile Division, our employees worked with the city, the Mobile Area Chamber, the Mobile Airport Authority and 'Team Mobile' that helped pave the way locally for the project to be successful," Saxon said. The lead person – or jack-of- all-trades for Alabama Power's Economic Development group – was Roger Wehner, who later became executive director of the Mobile Airport Authority. Wehner was on the ground floor doing the heavy lifting for the tanker project that would have been built by the European Aeronautic Defence and Space company (EADS), which was the parent company of Airbus. His role for the 320 included advising the governor and state Commerce Department director on aerospace supply chain development; serving as the statewide project manager through the recruitment of Airbus; conducting global analysis of aerospace clusters to identify best practices and create a development "playbook"; and serving as an adviser to state officials during negotiations. Wehner recently underscored the magnitude of Airbus choosing Mobile. "The Airbus A320 facility in Mobile is equivalent to the Mercedes-Benz decision to join Alabama," Wehner said. "At its base are the similarities in both their global leadership in their respective domains." Wehner's equivalent on the technical side in pulling APC's team together was Chris Haynes, with Alabama Power's Contracts and Project Management department. "Airbus expressed from day one reliable electric service with minimal disturbances was critical to their manufacturing processes and quality control," Haynes said.

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