January 31, 2014
Businesses such as Travis Credit Union, which
started as an on-base business, would not exist. The same goes for a good
number of other businesses attracted here by government contracts or the
workforce of trained former military members the base generates.
“They have a lot of good job skills that they
have put back to work,” Fairfield City Manager Sean Quinn said Thursday of
Travis service members, who range from aircraft mechanics working at San
Francisco International Airport to fliers who established successful travel
agencies.
Air Base Parkway would not exist. Nor would much
of the commercial development along North Texas Street, such as the car
dealerships that “were a beehive of activity” thanks to paychecks from Travis
airmen and their families, according to Travis Community Consortium member and
retired Air Force Col. Bud Ross.
Neither would Travis School District exist,
which almost exclusively served military children when it was formed and now
serves students in parts of eastern Fairfield and southern Vacaville.
Fairfield, Vacaville and Suisun City would be
nowhere as diverse as they are now, thanks to the families that came here from
around the world and stayed on in the area after the military breadwinner
retired from the Air Force.
“A recent study showed we are the single most
ethically diverse area in the country and that is one of our strengths,” said
Sandy Person, president of the Solano Economic Development Corp.
Until Travis was established, Solano County’s
main population center was Vallejo, thanks to Mare Island Naval Shipyard,
Person said.
“We would be a much smaller town, more heavily
dominated by agriculture,” Quinn said of Fairfield.
When Person pitches Solano County to a potential
new business, Travis is part of that. She points out its labor pool. Travis’
presence was one of the reasons the light aircraft maker Icon may decide to
locate in Vacaville, Person said.
Neither would the communities be as large as
they are without the retired military, veterans and base workers who cluster
here because of the base, its employment and its services.
David Grant Medical Center, and the Veterans
Affairs medical clinic located with it, is a major reason so many military
retirees chose to stay here, Ross said. That facility also generated a good
crop of doctors, dentists and other medical professionals who stayed here to
practice medicine once they took off their uniforms.
The base affected how far east Fairfield and how
far south Vacaville can expand their development, based on the communities’
Travis Protection Plan to ensure encroachment doesn’t doom the base if the
Pentagon and Congress decide to once again close bases.
Quinn, Person and Ross, all Travis Community
Consortium members, agree that the area has done and continues to do as much as
it can to protect Travis.
“There will be more opportunities to partner
with Travis and we need to take them,” Quinn said of the ongoing work to meet
the base’s needs.
That includes keeping down the costs of Travis
doing business in the state as much as possible, Person said. Ross added that
work needs to be done to streamline the processes the base goes through to
build projects such as the recently completed assault landing strip.
“We need to make sure that we never take Travis
for granted,” Quinn said. Person said that current leaders need to cultivate
that support of the base in future residents.
“A lot of Solano County businesses don’t realize
how their business and lifestyles are so dependent on Travis,” Ross said.
Reach Ian Thompson at 427-6976 or ithompson@dailyrepublic.net.
Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ithompsondr.