Roger Wehner realized he helped build something great when he saw a little kid tracing the rising path of a plane through the sky, then run with his arms outstretched hoping to catch some air.

The plane taking off was from the Mobile Aeroplex at Brookley, also the home of the new Airbus U.S. manufacturing facility. The kid belongs to the surrounding community of Dauphin Island Parkway.

And the connection between the two is what Wehner holds as the most rewarding prize he has ever received.

ABL Roger Wehner from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.

Airbus selected Mobile and the Aeroplex for its first fixed-wing commercial aircraft manufacturing facility in the United States. It will employ about 1,000 people and change the lives of countless more as suppliers continue to locate nearby. The $600 million plant will produce A320 family aircraft, the most popular single-aisle planes in the world. They will produce four planes per month and ultimately graduate to eight per month.

“I have always wanted to build something enduring that will make a positive impact and improve lives,” Wehner said.

Wehner is 45 and has called Alabama home since 1988. He started in the military and was later selected as a National Needs Fellow at Virginia Tech. He then worked for Alabama Power’s international economic development team, Safran USA and Global Resource Group. He now serves as the executive director of Mobile Airport Authority.

Many projects have spun out of the Mobile Aeroplex at Brookley reformation, such as Doyle Park, which used to be a place for drug pushers. An investment of $1.5 million in 24 acres will engage the children with aviation. Another project is the Alabama Aerospace Innovation and Research Center (A2IRC), an 80,000-square-foot complex providing free space to Alabama’s research universities. This will spawn innovation in the growing aerospace cluster. It will also allow the world’s greatest aerospace companies to come in direct contact with Alabama’s best and brightest young people.

Imagine watching airplanes take off and land while playing at the park, harnessing the fascination of flight, then you look a little farther to see a world-class facility producing airplanes. It’s a tangible springboard and career path that will transform lives.

“From the playground to the plant,” Wehner said. “It’s a holistic model starting in the park and segued to the STEM programing in the elementary and middle school. Then from the Aviation Academy at the B.C. Raines High School, to Alabama’s Aviation College, on to the AIDT training center, and finally to a world-class plant. If we can get these kids to work harder in school, the aerospace cluster is a well spring of opportunity.”

The Airbus plant will roll out its first A320 plane in the second quarter of next year.

At Doyle Park next door, kids will be tracing the rising path of a plane through the sky and actually catching some air.