‘This town is booming’: Winter Haven airport director sees aerospace driving big things

Thomas R. Oldt
·9 min read
Alex Vacha is executive director of the Winter Haven Regional Airport.
Alex Vacha is executive director of the Winter Haven Regional Airport.

When Winter Haven hired Alex Vacha as airport director, he was but 29 and the former teacher’s only directly relevant experience was manager of the comparatively somnambulant Lake Wales airport.

Yet it turned out to be an inspired choice as Vacha, now 33, has led an impressive effort to turn Gilbert Field into a regional airport of significance and to support initiatives that are likely to be substantial drivers of the area’s commerce as well as important components of Florida’s burgeoning aerospace ecosystem.

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Q. When did aviation first beckon and at what point did a career in it become attractive?

A. I knew in high school that I wanted to go into aviation. Growing up in Pinellas County, watching airplanes fly overhead, sealed the deal before I ever got into one. Once I actually flew in an airplane – the sights and sounds, the cockpit – it was just fascinating to me.

I applied only to Embry Riddle and had every intention of going into the airlines, but I made friends with ROTC students there and found scholarship opportunities. I had never considered the military, but I ended up signing an eight-year contract with the Army and when I graduated I was commissioned a second lieutenant. I received my private pilot’s license while in school, as well as my first role in helicopters, but my flight training really picked up at Fort Rucker, flying Blackhawks. My assigned mission was medivacs.

Q. What’s the essence of a medical evacuation mission?

A. I accumulated around 950 helicopter hours in the Army, performing medivac missions in Kosovo and most recently in Iraq. I would be lying in my bunk with a walkie-talkie every night, waiting for a mission. When it happens – “Medivac! Medivac! Medivac!” is what you hear on the radio – it’s an adrenaline rush. You know someone needs you and you’re going to get there as fast as you can. When you deploy overseas, the aviation task force prioritizes medivac. If there are aircraft down in the medivac unit, every other Blackhawk is available for medivac duty.

Q. Were you picking up just American service personnel?

A. No, we would pick up foreign nationals too, and if necessary we would treat the opposing force. There are priority levels. If there are injuries in all classifications, you prioritize Americans. But the United States treats all injuries.

Q. You’ve logged 121 hours of combat flying and 166 hours under night vision goggles. What were the circumstances of those flights?

A. All were medivac. What’s special about night vision goggles is that light is amplified 2,000 times. You can fly in close to zero illumination. When we first were flying night training missions in Alabama, we would land in open fields. If it’s pitch black, you can still see, albeit it’s granular and rather pixilated.

Landing in an open field and flipping the goggles off and not being able to see more than six inches in front of you and then flipping them down and seeing perfectly is very, very cool – and such an increase in capabilities as a pilot.

Fast forward to flying in Iraq in the middle of the night over rolling desert and being able to see a little blob of a base out in the middle of nowhere and being able to land. That’s a testament to the Army’s capabilities.

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Q. You’ve taken to the air thousands of times. Is there any such thing as a routine flight?

A. I picture my flight experience as a curve – in the beginning, low-time hours, you sort of feel confident, learning as much as you can and as you gain more experience you realize that what you’re doing is inherently dangerous and you start to get a bigger picture of things. As soon as you make pilot-in-command, the learning curve steepens and you’re constantly evaluating what can go wrong.

Q. Why did you decide to leave the Army reserves after nearly a decade?

A. I got out in July of 2020. After the second deployment, I came back from Iraq and my wife and I were in agreement – let’s transition to full civilian life and start a family. We hadn’t had kids, and I didn’t want to miss any of that. Now we have a 9-month-old little girl and life is good.

Q. COVID caused mammoth disruptions to the commercial airline business. What was the effect on general aviation – did restrictions affecting the traveling public cause more people to take up private flying or did GA suffer along with everything else?

A. In the beginning of COVID, we saw the state of Florida go into a shutdown period. In those first months, things got extremely slow. About six months after COVID started, we started seeing an uptick in general aviation activity and sales, and once it started it never stopped – and that’s what I’ve heard from other airport managers too. Flying recreationally was like boating and RVing – something you could do safely.

Q. This facility evolved from a grass strip to a World War II training base to a civilian facility known as Gilbert Field before becoming Winter Haven Municipal Airport. The airport recently changed its designation from a municipal to a regional airport. What is the difference, why was the change made and what is the practical implication of the redesignation?

A. A regional airport supports a regional economy by connecting cities to regional and national markets with high levels of activity. What it means is that we’re serving a larger market and we want our name to be associated with that. Sun ’n Fun is an excellent example where we’re seeing hundreds of airplanes and families coming here. Over the last five years, our Sun ’n Fun program has grown exponentially. This was the first year we’ve had an operating control tower for the event, which can help sort the traffic and taxi the aircraft. Then we have a crew to help tie down the plane and help with the luggage. In the terminal, we have car rentals and the city offers a shuttle service from here to Sun ’n Fun. This year alone, we had 183 aircraft, including eight jets. We sold 9,540 gallons of avgas and 2,668 gallons of jet fuel. We’re proud of it, and we’re going to continue to expand on that.

Q. When the city decided to move airport operations from the south side of the airport to the north side bordering U.S. 92 some 15 years ago, the rationale was an anticipated blast of business and commercial opportunities, but it’s been slow going. What’s the status now?

A. We’ve completed designs for all three of the available development areas, opportunities for aeronautical development such as corporate hangars and non-aeronautical development such as retail. Part of this development is for the future Central Florida Aerospace Academy facility. It starts this fall as part of Winter Haven High School as a temporary campus on the airport, similar to what Lakeland has, and we’re in the process of building it right now, which should be finished by August. If this is successful, we hope to be able to build a permanent facility in the next several years.

The northwest development area has been approved by the City Commission for infrastructure and we’re working with a private developer to build 10,000-square-foot hangars. And we’re speaking with other developers for other parcels. We already have water, sewer and fiber, so we’re primed for development. We have 84 people on the waitlist for T-hangars. For executive hangars, there is a competitive proposal process. So renting is not a problem. We have gained a lot of momentum. One thing I can tell you for sure – the aerospace academy in Lakeland definitely helped spark more people in the industry, and you’ve seen how that airport has grown. I see that happening here.

Q. Commercial aviation is facing a severe pilot shortage. In addition to the school, what is the city and this airport doing to attract young people – and especially minorities – to aviation as a career?

A. I used to teach. I was in the classroom for three years in Hillsborough County. I still have that bug. Aerospace and education are very closely tied. There are so many careers possible in aviation, from baggage handling to air traffic control to piloting. I talk in classrooms as much as possible, we have field trips coming here, and several summer camps are coming this summer. Educating students who may one day work in this industry is important, and that’s how we fuel growth and development. New businesses are going to need a workforce to keep this going.

Q. You’re supposed to say this is your dream job, but if the Make-A-Wish Foundation could grant you any position, what would it be?

A. This is my dream job. It really is! Managing an airport is so diverse and the different things I do every day are what make it fun. I’ll be managing five or six capital projects in different phases – predesign, design, construction, grant reimbursements, making sure they’re on budget and on schedule. And then I’ll meet with businesses that are here to see how we can best support them. And we’ll meet with new businesses, and host field trips. In addition, we manage the FBO.

There’s just a plethora of different opportunities that are exciting. And the tremendous support we have from the city and the community makes what we do even that much greater.

This airport, and the city of Winter Haven, is a wonderful place to work. This town is booming and thriving. Winter Haven has the capability to reach extraordinary heights. We have room to grow, safely, while still supporting the businesses and tenants that we have.

Thomas R. Oldt can be reached at tomoldt@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Winter Haven booming, Alex Vacha says, and the airport plays a big role