Has lease option for hangars, would hire 17-22
The South Alabama Regional Airport Authority Thursday approved a lease option of its twin hangar complex for Yulista.
Yulista chief engineer Rick Toliver, who attended the meeting, told board members Yulista has bid on task work in a contract awarded to Lockheed Martin. If the company wins that bid, he expects Yulista to have 17 to 22 people working at SARA, and Lockheed to have 14 to 25 people working there. Work would begin in this facility between August and September of 2018, he said.
Toliver said Lockheed Martin officials have already visited the local facility, and area pleased with the location as a work site for the subcontract work.
Lockheed Martin would likely bring employees here, Toliver said, while Yulista would hire locally.
Yulista paid $30,000 for the lease option, which SARA will hold until July, airport manager Jed Blackwell said. If Yulista executes its option to lease, it will pay $30,000 per month for the facility.
Yulista is a subsidiary of Calista, an Alaska Native Regional Corporation created under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. The for-profit corporation has 17,300 shareholders primarily of Eskimo Yup’ik descent.
Toliver said Yulista works with defense, aerospace, civilian agencies and Homeland Security. It is headquartered in Huntsville.
“This is a very serious thing for us, not a lightly taken thing at all,” Toliver said.