HUNTSVILLE — Madison County Commission chairman Mac McCutcheon praised President Donald Trump's decision to move Space Command to Huntsville at a press conference in the Rocket City on Wednesday.
The former Alabama Speaker of the House was joined by several municipal and state leaders in a panel discussion on the topic, followed by a question-and-answer session with members of the media.
"What you see sitting here at this table is a partnership, a partnership of local leaders and state leaders working together to try to provide an economic development opportunity for our community," McCutcheon said. "And this is an economic opportunity, yes, but it's also much, much bigger than that. This is about national security and having the right people in the right place with the right education to get the job done."
The chairman gave credit to Alabama's federal officials for their continued efforts in bringing Space Command to Huntsville.
"I just want to say a special thank you to President Trump and our congressional team there in Washington, D.C., our senators and our congressmen, because they have been on point with this from the very beginning and continue to work together as partners," he said. "We joined with them on the local level as partners to ensure that once the building starts going up and people start coming in, we start getting jobs for those who are ready to go."
McCutcheon spoke of Huntsville's history of contributing to national defense and space exploration, noting his faith in the city's ability to remain an effective home for Space Command in the future.
"One of the things that really got my attention was when you look at the qualifications of having Space Command here in Huntsville, I go back and I look over many, many years of a process by which Redstone Arsenal began to grow and the management of Redstone Arsenal and what was going on in our community. We had the BRAC come in for base realignment. We brought in more generals to the base of anywhere at that time, around the world. And then from there we built on NASA, the Marshall Space Flight Center, work that was done during the Saturn V days in the 60s. And then as we moved forward, we got into missile defense."
"Now I look at Space Command coming, and I look at everything that we have in our community that's already in place, and I think this is the perfect place for it. We can bring out the best of what we have for our national security. And at the end of the day, this is not about communities as much as it is about our nation protecting our war fighters and winning the battle in space."
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