Newsletter: How the Air Force pursues the new while sustaining the old

It’s Friday, and not a moment too soon. (It felt like Friday a couple of days ago, but that might have been wishful thinking.) Let’s talk business.

Air Force Materiel Command, anchored at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, is big, to be sure. Really big. It employs some 89,000 military members and civilians worldwide while managing more than $80 billion of budget authority.

But it’s also important, developing the Air Force’s warfighting capability and equipping the men and the women of the service.

All the while, AFMC is executing a demanding balancing act. Keep aging planes flying — the B-52 has flown since 1952, for example — while developing the planes of the future, which might not even be crewed.

All of that begins in our backyard.

AFMC’s balancing act: Modernizing while keeping the legacy fleet flying

The challenge: Modernize the Air Force while maintaining an aging legacy fleet. And do it in an era of declining or tightening defense budgets.

The mandate: “Our PEOs (program executive officers) within AFMC are life cycle managers. So they don’t get to make a choice between: Do I sustain or do I make a modification? They actually have to do both,” AFMC commander Gen. Duke Z. Richardson said.

Read the story.

Springboro plans recreational marijuana business ban

What happened: Springboro plans to permanently ban recreational marijuana businesses and has extended a temporary moratorium until that time.

What’s ahead: The city is finalizing a prohibition on zoning, occupancy or other allowances for adult-use cannabis businesses — much as it did with medical marijuana businesses several years ago, city Law Director Gerald McDonald said.

Read the story.

Investor takes stake in AES Ohio with $546M investment

Credit: JIM NOELKER

What happened: Canadian global investment group CDPQ will take a stake in Dayton-area electric utility AES Ohio with a $546 million investment, with the closing expected early in 2025, AES said Tuesday.

The proposal gives CDPQ a 30% indirect equity interest in AES Ohio, the company said.

Impact: The utility expects no impact on customer electric rates or Dayton-area (or service-area) employment, AES Ohio spokeswoman Mary Ann Kabel told the Dayton Daily News.

“This is a plus for our company in terms of growth plans, and that benefits customers,” Kabel told me.

Read the story.

Dayton Phoenix Group to create 115 jobs, invest $4.5M into Dayton facility

Transportation products manufacturer Dayton Phoenix Group is rising from the ashes, again.

Survivor: Dayton Phoenix, along with a host of other North Dayton businesses, was slammed in the 2019 Memorial Day tornadoes.

The manufacturer moved its work to a former Delphi plant in Vandalia — no small task, that — rebuilt, survived a global pandemic and has been thriving ever since.

Read the latest.

3 new businesses set to open at Dayton Mall this fall

From the Department of Stories-Our-Online-Readers-Really-Enjoyed: A trio of new businesses are set to open at Dayton Mall in coming months.

New energy: Dayton Mall features more than 90 tenants in its 1.4 million square feet of leasable space. Businesses that opened inline spaces recently include: Jumpstar Bungee Trampoline, Toy Nation, and Talk N’ Fix, among others.