The Eastern Iowa Airport announced a new regional aerospace brand and development initiative Wednesday, June 24, using its fourth annual State of the Airport event to introduce “Ascentus,” a marketing and collaboration platform designed to align development efforts to attract aerospace and defense investment to the Cedar Rapids region and the state of Iowa.
Airport Director Marty Lenss, joined by leaders from city government, higher education, the Iowa Economic Development Authority and the Cedar Rapids Airport Commission, framed the launch as a turning point in the region’s effort to convert the community’s aerospace heritage into an organized economic development strategy.
“We are taking the next step in transforming Iowa’s aerospace legacy into Iowa’s aerospace future,” Mr. Lenss told the crowd gathered in an airport hangar. “The question is not whether the growth will occur, the question is where it will occur, and whether Iowa is prepared to compete for it.”
The Ascentus brand — combining “ascent” with an embedded “us” to signal the initiative’s collaborative partnership — carries the tagline “Aerospace Happens Here.” Mr. Lenss said a dedicated website for the new brand will launch in July, consolidating information about the Eastern Iowa Airport’s development assets under the new brand in partnership with the state’s own marketing efforts.
The initiative grew out of a study commissioned by the Airport Commission and IEDA, which hired global aerospace and defense consultancy Oliver Wyman to assess the region’s competitive position.
Mr. Lenss said the study confirmed that Eastern Iowa already possesses the foundational elements of a viable aerospace ecosystem: workforce depth, university research capabilities, and 1,500 acres of development-ready land at the CID SuperPark adjacent to the airfield, including parcels with direct airfield access.
IEDA Director Debi Durham, who attended the event, said the opportunity to develop a large-scale aerospace cluster is real, and the timing is right to develop it. She alluded to the joint effort to attract JetZero, a company developing a revolutionary blended wing aircraft, to build a new production facility in Cedar Rapids. The effort fell short, Ms. Durham noted, but it provided valuable context to the current effort.
“While we didn’t land the project, something important came out of it,” she said. “It gave us a foundation and showed us what’s possible when we align our efforts, and it helps shape the momentum of what we’re celebrating here today … across the country and around the world, aerospace and defense companies are rethinking where they grow, looking for places with strong supply chains, available sites, and most importantly, talent — and that’s where Iowa stands out. We’re not starting from scratch, we’re building from strength.”
Iowa State University President David Cook and University of Iowa Associate Provost Barry Thomas both appeared at the event, pledging research, engineering, and workforce pipeline contributions from their respective institutions.
ISU’s aerospace engineering program enrolls more than 1,000 undergraduates and serves as the lead institution of the NASA Iowa Space Grant Consortium. The University of Iowa’s Operator Performance Laboratory and Iowa Space Flight Laboratory were also highlighted as active research assets already serving industry and government partners.
Airport Commission chair Robin Therme noted that the land base surrounding the airport was assembled over decades by previous airport commissions. “This type of asset is uncommon anywhere in our country,” she said.
Existing educational campus programs at the Eastern Iowa Airport include Kirkwood Community College’s Aviation Maintenance Technology program, now in its fourth year with a waiting list, and Coe College’s aviation management and flight operations program.
This is a developing story. A more in-depth story will be published soon.
