Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Adam Aircraft Closes its Doors

Airplane manufacturer appears one announcement short of calling it quits

It looks like it's curtains for Ogden Airport aircraft manufacturing tenant Adam Aircraft, according to this morning's Standard-Examiner story. Adam Aircraft, which has been under severe financial pressure for the past several months, now announces it has shut its doors, Business Page Ace Reporter Scott Schwebke reports:

OGDEN — Adam Aircraft Industries suspended operations Monday at its headquarters in Colorado, putting about 500 remaining employees out of work indefinitely.

The measure stemmed from Adam’s inability to come to terms with a lender for funding to maintain business operations, the company said in a prepared statement.Although the most recent company press statement falls short of announcing the full liquidation threatened earlier in the month, press spokeswoman Shelly Simi also hints at followup announcements later in the week. The company is still evidently holding off the inevitable, hoping and praying for the appearance of an investor "white knight."

Upon hearing the latest news on Adam's plight, Ace Reporter Schwebke apparently speed-dialed his buddy Dave Harmer, for the latest visionary wisdom on Adam Aircraft's apparent demise:
Dave Harmer, the city’s community and economic development director, said he remains hopeful that Adam will find new funding partners to allow production of the A500 and A700 to resume.

“I’m still hopeful they will continue and that the aircraft plan is a good plan and will survive,” he said.
Hope springs eternal in Emerald City, aka Prozac City.

We're going to go out on a limb however, and predict that its "all over but the shouting" for erstwhile Ogden airport tenant Adam Aircraft.

What a shame. That model A500 in the photo at the header of today's Std-Ex story appears to be one sweet bird*.

Comments, anyone?

*airplane jargon

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

i think you may have missed the main story today.
cost over runs at the junction are only 1.7%.
that said the price tag quoted in the paper was 45 mil.
please correct me if i am wrong but i thought the whole project was supposed to cost 23mil.

RudiZink said...

Patience, gentle reader; there's a writeup coming up. We anticipate posting three main articles today.

Anonymous said...

uta stated today as well that the feds would be funding 80% of the frontrunner construction.
sounds like godfrey again has lied to the residents of ogden about the availability of fed funding for worthy projects such as our alternative to his gondola project.
his procrastination thought may or may not have delayed our ability to access those funds due to the current state of our national economy. several times in the past the feds have initiated fed programs to stimulate the economy such as road building sewer system upgrades and mass transit programs.

OgdenLover said...

Just curious: How much has the apparent loss of Adam Aircraft cost the citizens of Ogden in addition to the tragedy of jobs lost. How much RDA money are we on the hook for?

Anonymous said...

One minor point on your main post on Adam Air, Rudi in re: the snarkiness in re: Mr. Schwebke having speed-dialed Mr. Harmer:

1) Damn right he got to Harmer for a comment. He'd have done a piss poor job of reporting had he not gone to Harmer, or another Godfrey administration flack for comment.

2) He'd better have Harmer on his speed dial. Were I running the SE, if I found out my Ogden city government reporter did not have Harmer on his quick-reach contact list, he'd be an ex-reporter damn quick.

This time, Rudi, the snarkiness was out of place.

RudiZink said...

LOL, Curm. What happened? Didja get up on the wrong side of the bed this a.m.?

;-)

Anonymous said...

Ogden Lover, None of Ogdens' RDA money went to Adams. The approx. $4 million went to their landlord, Mel Kemp. That money has been put neatly into his pocket, and I'm sure that Mr. Harmer's top priority now will be to find him a new tennant.
One can only assume from observing how Harmer operates that he is an agent of the developers, the vehicle by which they recieve their public monies. Ogden offers these guys a no risk investment program and serves them in every way possible to help them profit. Any losses are incured by the resident taxpayers.

Anonymous said...

I am with Harmer on this one. Keeping my fingers crossed that a miracle will happen with Adam Aircraft.

As to the $4 million Kemp got, $2.5 of which was under highly suspicious circumstances, it is not lost unless and until he defaults on the property tax payments that will go to paying off the bonds, the proceeds of which went into his pocket.

If he does default, it will be interesting to see if the bond holders have recourse against the tax payers of Ogden. Mayor Godfrey has steadfastly stated that this would never, could never, happen. Others, including his own financial people seem to take the opposite position.

Never a boring moment in the land of Oz.

Anonymous said...

disgusted -

Don't forget that the contract with R & O for building the Junction theme park was "cost plus" and not legally signed by the due date for construction to start.

Information that came out in the original projections was that $21 million in bonds would be issued.

Typical Harmer and cohorts information that never turns out to be what they said it was going to be.

Just relax - taxpayers won't have to pay for anything - we have the Chief Financial Officer's word that is so. Taxpayers are not responsible for RDA debt - Wonder where our City accountants got their degrees? By mail order, perhaps...

Anonymous said...

Maybe we could convince them to move the artificial high adventure icicle out to Kemps place, we could draw all those ice climbing enthusiasts from Roy and Sunset.

Anonymous said...

Rick Adam only cares about Rick Adam. What he did at Neon and now Adam Aircraft demonstrates the type of "guy", Rick is. He knew what was coming at Adam and he announced his "new" company 10 days or so before Adam closed the doors. Would you invest in anything this "guy" sponsors. His gruff, military approach has got him what he deserves. He is a con man and a complete asshole!

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