When Bill Gere first started learning to fly, his mother still
had to drive him to the airport for flying lessons, and he had a
paper route to pay for them. Now, 30 years later, the former
commercial airline pilot is looking to drum up revenue for another
worthy cause: the city’s economy.
Hollister – When Bill Gere first started learning to fly, his mother still had to drive him to the airport for flying lessons, and he had a paper route to pay for them. Now, 30 years later, the former commercial airline pilot is looking to drum up revenue for another worthy cause: the city’s economy.
After being hired as the new manager of the Hollister Municipal Airport last month, Gere has taken on the daunting task of turning an airport that is not exactly lucrative into something that can generate new jobs and businesses for the city’s ailing economy.
“(The airport) is just paying for itself right now,” said City Councilman Robert Scattini. “We’re not in the red, but we’re standing on the edge. “The airport currently grosses about $560,000 a year and has an overhead of about $180,000 a year, Gere said.
But over the next six months, Gere will be working with the council on a master plan that will encourage private jet owners in the Bay Area to make the move down south to Hollister, Gere said.
“As a rule of thumb, when you look at someone who has a $40 million private jet, they’re going to have ties to big business,” Gere said.
And by offering aircraft storage in Hollister as a low-cost alternative to the overcrowded and expensive San Jose airport, he said, Hollister might be able to lure some of that big business down to San Benito County. Fees for parking a corporate jet at the San Jose airport can cost about $12,000 a month, he said, while the Hollister airport would charge less than half of that.
“People like to hang around where their planes are, and some of those businessmen up in San Jose might say, ‘Why am I paying so much money to do business up here when I could do it in Hollister where my jet is for less money?’ And then they could build their businesses right near the airport to be close to their jets,” Gere said. “The airport is a diamond in the rough, and for the last 15 or 20 years, that’s the mantra everyone’s been chanting, but no one’s been doing anything about it.”
Gere and City Council members such as Brad Pike, who calls the airport “the sleeping giant,” say they’re ready to change that.
“The No. 1 goal is to build things that benefit the City of Hollister, to attract people who have the resources to bring new businesses and new jobs to Hollister,” Gere said.
In addition to revenue from storage fees, Pike said he’d like to see business parks and other operations hook up with the airport.”Not only do you want to bolster it up and have it as a destination point for aircraft, in the surrounding area that attaches to the airport there’s opportunities for businesses to get involved,” he said.
Jessica Quandt covers politics for the Free Lance. Reach her at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or at [email protected].
