Inside SCTAC: Greenville's $6.1 Billion Economic Powerhouse

Did you know that just minutes from downtown Greenville, there's a business park that's driving our region's economy forward? In this episode, we sit down with Jody Bryson, the President and CEO of the South Carolina Technology and Aviation Center (SCTAC), to learn how this unique organization has become a magnet for top companies and high-paying jobs. Discover the fascinating history behind SCTAC, its $6.1 billion economic impact, and the exciting projects on the horizon, including a state-of-the-art automotive test track. Whether you're a business leader, a job seeker, or simply curious about what makes Greenville thrive, this episode is packed with insights you won't want to miss.

Links:

SCTAC Website

Jody Bryson Bio

Transcript

Katy Smith: [0:01] If you drive south on Augusta Road out of the city limits of Greenville for just a few minutes, you'll pass the entrance to the South Carolina Technology and Aviation Center, or SCTAC. Its modest sign belies the fact that behind it sits one of the most economically impactful business parks in the Southeast, with a decades-long history of serving the aviation and technology industries. Thanks to its history of visionary leadership and public-private partnership, SCTAC has made an enormous difference in Greenville County, the surrounding area, and the state as a whole. And soon, through a new partnership with CUICAR, or Clemson University's International Center for Automotive Research, they'll expand that impact in the automotive industry. I'm Katy Smith with Greater Good Greenville, and I'm excited to discuss all of this and more on this episode of Simple Civics Greenville County. I'm joined by Jody Bryson, President and CEO of the South Carolina Technology and Aviation Center, a role he has served in since 2007. His visionary leadership has garnered him much well-deserved recognition, including being among South Carolina's 50 most influential people for 2024. We'll post his bio in the show notes. Jody, thanks so much for joining us today to talk about a really important part of Greenville County, which is SCTAC.

Jody Bryson: [1:19] It's my pleasure.

Katy Smith: [1:20] Let's start by you giving us an overview, maybe a couple of important bullet point numbers that help us get the scale and scope of what SCTAC is.

Jody Bryson: [1:28] Sure. So SCTAC is South Carolina's largest and most successful business park. We're located about 12 minutes from downtown Greenville, if you head south down Augusta Road. Our size is 2,600 acres, which if you've been to New York City, we're three and a half times the size of Central Park. That's helpful. The heart of our park is Donaldson Field Airport, and the runway there is large enough to land the space shuttle back when that was an active program. We were a secondary landing site in case of an emergency. We are comprised of more than 100 advanced manufacturing companies located within the park. We've got some big names there. Michelin has two facilities in our park. 3M, I know everybody loves Post-it notes. 3M has a mega site at our park, which their definition of a mega site is more than one manufacturing operation at a single location. And they have two there. They have specialty tape and adhesives and specialty film and media. In addition to that, Lockheed Martin is located at our park. They have just celebrated their 40th year, and they are our largest tenant in the park. They make the F-16 for the global marketplace there. Production has been underway for about four years now.

Katy Smith: [3:00] Which is such a point of pride for our community.

Jody Bryson: [3:02] It is such a point of pride. And up until the F-16 production, Lockheed Martin was just focused on maintenance, repair, and overhaul of existing aircraft. So now that they have the F-16 production, they also have F-16 sustainment work, which is another term for maintenance, repair, and overhaul. And so that combination of those two lines of work makes us the global home of the Lockheed Martin F-16. Because there's no other location in the world that has that unique combination. So it's been a huge deal for our park and for the state to have that. We have a number of other different companies. Our industry base is really sort of a microcosm of the state of South Carolina. We have, as I mentioned, advanced manufacturing. We have pharmaceutical companies. We have chemical companies. We have automotive suppliers. We have aviation industry, but it really does match up with South Carolina's strengths. And to that end, we really are a statewide economic asset. If you think about the Port of Charleston, as it's been known for a number of years, is really the state ports authority, but geographically located in Charleston, but has a huge impact statewide.

Jody Bryson: [4:28] The same goes true for SCTAC. We're physically located, geographically located in southern Greenville County, but our impact, again, is statewide. In fact, we just released the results of our latest economic impact study, which shows that SCTAC has a $6.1 billion economic impact statewide.

Katy Smith: [4:53] Oh, my gosh. That's incredible.

Jody Bryson: [4:54] It is incredible. We thought it would be a big number, but I don't think any of us expected $6.1 billion.

Katy Smith: [5:03] Well, I think that's particularly interesting when you think back to the history of this place. Will you tell us about the history?

Jody Bryson: [5:12] The park was originally constructed in 1942 as an Army Air Base to support our efforts in World War II. It was called an Army Air Base because the Air Force didn't even exist then. It wouldn't be created for several more years. And it operated very effectively. It was known as the airlift capital of the world at one time because the huge Globemaster cargo planes would come and land there. The base was designed to have three mile long runways in a triangular fashion. And that was to maximize the number of landings and takeoffs that could take place at the base. And these huge Globemasters would be loaded up with equipment and trucks and head to points all around the globe to be used by our troops in World War II. And it remained an active base until 1963.

Jody Bryson: [6:10] And at that time, it had been rebranded from Greenville Army Air Base to Donaldson Air Force Base. It was named Donaldson Air Force Base in honor of a local pilot who was a World War I flying ace and a local hero. His name was Captain John Donaldson. So that was a very appropriate way to honor his memory and what he meant to the effort in World War I. So Donaldson Air Force Base was closed in 1963, as I mentioned.

Jody Bryson: [6:47] At that point in time, some very visionary leaders at the city and the county of Greenville realized that they needed to do something to fill the void that was left in our economy by all those families moving for other jobs as the base closure took place. And they were supporting businesses that folded. And to their credit, they were able to come together as a city council and a county council, and they approached four local banks and asked them to put up $450,000 to acquire the entire 2,600 acre, all the facilities, the surplus equipment, everything that was left behind, lots of facilities.

Jody Bryson: [7:33] And within six months, they had auctioned off the surplus equipment, they had sold the utility rights, the rail rights, and had paid off the debt in full. At that point, we became a self-sustaining organization, meaning that we had to generate revenues through whatever business enterprise that we could come up with. And the most obvious thing was that we could lease property, sell property, continue to operate the airport, not as a military airport, but as a public general aviation airport.

Jody Bryson: [8:08] And so the city and the county started down that path. What's really curious about that is we're not in the city limits. We never have been in the city limits, but the city leaders realize the importance of the project. And so they are co-owners of the airfield along with county council. So if you look at our airport property, the title is City of Greenville, County of Greenville. That's one of the many unique things about the park. So the park was founded officially in 1964, and it struggled in the early years, but some large companies found their way to the park. At that time, it was called Donaldson Center Industrial Air Park, which is a very fine name, and companies like Union Carbide built a carbon fiber production facility which still operates today but under different ownership. 3M bought an existing facility and planted their flag at the park. Lockheed Martin came about 20 years later, so they just celebrated their 40th anniversary at the park. And then other companies slowly discovered the park and began to either become tenants of the organization or to buy property from the organization and build their own facilities.

Katy Smith: [9:36] Brilliant. There's so much about that story that is emblematic of lots of stories of success in Greenville. I think about just that ability to pivot and imagine what could be different given circumstances that happened. The public-private partnership is just incredible and so much a part of Greenville's story. I love the cross-governmental collaboration to think of city council and county council coming together to solve a problem. The other thing that I love about it is the patience that it took at the beginning. To hear that it wasn't a stellar success right away and the stick-to-itiveness that everyone had to have to create this economic juggernaut for us now. It's really great.

Jody Bryson: [10:20] It is a great story and I love the history and I can testify to the impact that the park has on our citizenry. My father actually went to work for Union Carbide not long after it opened. And he was a machinist and he worked there for basically his entire career until he retired. That job enabled him to put me and my sister through college as first generation college students in South Carolina. So I know what it means. I know what the park means to the folks that work there and live in close proximity and the great jobs that those companies provide. That economic impact study that I mentioned earlier, one of the things that we were astounded to learn is that the average wage for employees at the various companies at SCTAC is about $90,000 a year. And these are, we're talking about manufacturing jobs for the most part.

Katy Smith: [11:25] That's a great job.

Jody Bryson: [11:26] It really raises the per capita income average a lot for our upstate region. So the park operated as Donaldson Center Industrial Air Park until 2007. And in 2007, we realized that we were really looking at being part of a global economy. We had so many foreign direct investment coming into the U.S. And so we didn't really have a strategy for how to market ourselves in a global economy. We were really marketing ourselves in a sort of local fashion, sort of reacting to calls that might come in, but not being proactive in marketing ourselves. We didn't really have a viable website at the time. We didn't have any social media, which was just sort of coming into vogue.

Jody Bryson: [12:22] So I decided we needed to have a global economic development strategic plan. So we spent about a year on that. And one of the things that came out of that was the need to rebrand the park. So what we did is we talked to members of county council, members of city council, of course, our board. We talked to a lot of the companies. We talked to the economic developers at the local and regional levels, and we came up with a consensus. The first thing was that we are unique within South Carolina. South Carolina has an incredible reputation internationally. It's a great place to do business, so we should embrace that.

Jody Bryson: [13:01] Then really the rest of it's pretty simple. All the companies out there are high-tech, advanced manufacturing companies. Aviation industry is our forte. That's our specialty. So we landed on the South Carolina Technology and Aviation Center, and we call it SCTAC for short.

Jody Bryson: [13:28] It's been very effective in terms of positioning us, not only statewide, but globally. The one thing I always want your listeners to understand is that we took special effort to honor Captain John Donaldson. Our airport, which is 1,400 of the 2,600 acres total, never had an official name. So we named our airport Donaldson Field. So now it's Donaldson Field at SCTAC. And so we continue to honor John Donaldson's memory. And that was important to all of us.

Katy Smith: [14:09] So a long history of continued upward success, which is a wonderful foundation for some really exciting announcements that have come about in the last couple of years. Can you tell us what's underway now and what we can expect?

Jody Bryson: [14:23] I mentioned the F-16 earlier. That was a tremendous effort with our organization as Lockheed's landlord.

Jody Bryson: [14:34] Partnering with Greenville County and the state of South Carolina to pull together a proposal that would be effective in what was an internal competition among all the Lockheed Martin sites around the country to relocate the F-16 production. And so that has raised Lockheed Martin Greenville's profile within Lockheed Martin Corporate significantly. And so one of the things on the horizon is that we now understand that Lockheed Martin Greenville at SCTAC is not just going to be the global home of the Lockheed Martin F-16, but there are going to be some additional opportunities coming our way that maybe we wouldn't have qualified for five or 10 years ago. So that's very exciting. That is great. That's about all I can say at this point. I'll just kind of tease you with that, Katy. You have to have me come back after we have a few more steps in that direction. Another project that I am so excited about really came out, again, came out of that strategic plan that we launched in 2007. It really had to do with the fact that we're so close to CUICAR, which opened about that same time.

Jody Bryson: [15:58] And for a long time, we were just known as supporting aviation industry. We have other aviation companies besides Lockheed Martin. Stevens Aerospace, for example, has a massive operation at our park as well. We have a number of air cargo companies and all. So we've always been known for supporting aviation industry. That's really our niche. What we hadn't figured out how to support was the automotive industry in the state. If you look at South Carolina, the two big boys in terms of industry are aviation and automotive.

Jody Bryson: [16:41] And so it took us a while to come up with an idea as to how we could support the automotive industry. And it just so happened that I mentioned those three runways in triangular fashion that when it was originally a base, one of those runways was just sitting there dormant. It was being protected for future activation was what I was told when I came in 2007. And that sounded fine until I asked the question, how much capacity do we have on the current runway, which is open? And the answer was, well, we're only at 35% usage, so we've got 65% capacity. So that got me thinking, we're 40 years into this, and we're at 65% capacity, I mean, availability. I don't think we're going to ever need that second runway and so I started talking to some of my colleagues at CUICAR and I said...

Jody Bryson: [17:50] Can you think of what we could do to support your efforts? And they said, well, you know, one thing we don't have is an automotive test track to do testing in real world conditions. We've got all the lab space and great industry partnerships. And I thought, well, what could you do with a mile long straightaway?

Katy Smith: [18:11] Oh, my gosh.

Jody Bryson: [18:12] And that sort of planted the seeds for what today is the International Transportation Innovation Center at SCTAC, which is a 600-acre automotive proving ground, South Carolina's only automotive proving ground. We have been operating for 13 years now.

Jody Bryson: [18:35] We have had a number of companies as clientele, and we have listened very carefully to those companies, and they have asked us to add features to the test track in addition to the existing straightaway. Because we had a business case to support it, we had built a 5,000-foot-long durability surface, which has chuckholes and rumble strips and simulated rail crossings and potholes, and that is widely used by the commercial automotive companies. Not long after that, we were asked if we could add two slope hills, which would allow brake testing on an incline. So we built those features, added those to the track. And then while we were finishing that up, we had a company come to us and say, how about, could you do a brake lane? And so we said, yeah, we can do that. We had plenty of space to do that. That's a very sophisticated type of surface that they do the brake testing on. But the cherry on top was always going to be a continuous highway speed loop.

Jody Bryson: [19:51] Because the shortcoming of the straightaway is that there was no way to maintain the highway speed as you got to the end of it. Because you had to slow down to make your turn and come back up. And what a lot of automotive companies need is they need to log miles at the same speed. And that is a big, big testing requirement. And oh, by the way, a lot of the companies that are testing at our track were traveling far distances to test on the features that we now have here at our track in Greenville.

Katy Smith: [20:25] And what would be the next closest track they might be?

Jody Bryson: [20:28] Oh, there's, for example, there's a durability track in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

Katy Smith: [20:34] Oh, wow.

Jody Bryson: [20:34] Yeah. So not close. Not close. Some of our passenger OEMs would travel as far as Richmond and use their NASCAR track to do continuous or Talladega and use that track. But there's not a lot of security at those locations. You get a lot of members of the public who are there taking photographs. There's not a high degree of confidentiality available. Not to mention the cost of having to travel to those sites versus having it right here in your own backyard. So we were able to, based on the early success of the track, we were able to approach the state of South Carolina and ask if they would provide us with some capital. And then we would also add to that and we were able to get a grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce through EDA to fund a large portion of it and so we are now, I would say, four to six weeks away from opening the three-mile continuous highway speed loops. And the word is out.

Katy Smith: [21:42] I mean, I'm excited.

Jody Bryson: [21:43] I know.

Katy Smith: [21:44] That is really great.

Jody Bryson: [21:45] Yeah. I wish I could show your listeners some photographs and video of the track, but that won't be possible over the podcast.

Katy Smith: [21:54] No, but that'll incentivize people to tune in to their local news and check on your website and social media.

Jody Bryson: [22:00] So it's been a long time coming, but it really is a unique feature. In fact, last week, the South Carolina Automotive Summit held their annual meeting in Greenville. And Secretary Harry Lightsey with the South Carolina Department of Commerce was one of the keynote speakers. And during his remarks, much to our surprise, he gave our track a shout out.

Katy Smith: [22:25] Oh, that's well deserved.

Jody Bryson: [22:27] Yeah, well, I think so.

Katy Smith: [22:28] Yeah.

Jody Bryson: [22:28] I think so.

Katy Smith: [22:29] I mean, that's such a brilliant use of an underutilized asset.

Jody Bryson: [22:32] It really is. I mean, it's a great story of reclamation. And the fact that it was built for World War II just makes it all that more special. Right. We could convert it. And so, yeah, so we're excited about that.

Katy Smith: [22:55] Oh, I bet. But I bet there's a lot of listeners who are thinking, I would be happy to raise my hand if you need any drivers. That sounds like a lot of fun.

Jody Bryson: [23:03] I've had lots of volunteers. Yeah, lots of volunteers.

Katy Smith: [23:06] Oh, my gosh.

Jody Bryson: [23:06] We have to always remind everyone this is really just for automotive industry use. No hot laps for the public.

Katy Smith: [23:16] Oh, my gosh. That's so good. All of this incredible work is driven by you and your team, for sure. But you are governed by a board, and you are an interesting entity. This is a podcast about civics and government and our community, and you're a quasi-governmental entity, which there are not that many of. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Jody Bryson: [23:37] Sure. So I mentioned earlier that when the base was closed, the city and the county used private monies to acquire it. And then after that set us up to be a self-sustaining organization. What that means is that, so we have the benefit of being owned jointly by the county and city of Greenville. We're a joint agency.

Jody Bryson: [24:06] And the state defines us as a special purpose district. But what's different about us and most of the other special purpose districts in the state is that we have no taxing authority, nor do we receive any tax dollars for our operations. So we are in that sense, we have all the benefits of being a quasi-public entity that can help us in certain ways. But at the same time we are not a drain on the city or county budgets. So the money that we generate primarily through the leases that we manage and those lease revenues and the test revenues, that's what we use to build our budget on each year. So it's a great return on investment if you think about the fact that it only cost the county and the city $450,000, which, by the way, wasn't tax dollars either. It was private money that was put up and then paid back. And so to this day, we're still self-sustaining. No tax dollars coming to us from either body for operations. And our impact, as we said, is $6.1 billion annually.

Katy Smith: [25:22] That is a really good ROI.

Jody Bryson: [25:24] I have to say. I think so, too. I think so, too.

Katy Smith: [25:26] You mentioned special purpose districts. For listeners, I will put in the show notes an episode we did about special purpose districts to remind you all of what those are, the many different ways they can look, and that'll help you understand a little bit more about SCTAC's governmental status. Well, Jody, we are so grateful to you for your leadership and the role that SCTAC plays in our community and really in our nation in helping support the nation's mission, important industries, and lots of really great jobs right here at home. Thanks for joining us and thanks for your leadership.

Jody Bryson: [25:59] Thank you so much, Katy. It's been a pleasure.

Catherine Puckett: Simple Civics: Greenville County is a project of Greater Good Greenville. Greater Good Greenville was catalyzed by the merger of the Nonprofit Alliance and the Greenville Partnership for Philanthropy. You can learn more on our website at greatergoodgreenville.org.