By Aidan Mortensen | KOAL News
Following its groundbreaking in 2024, the Utah State University Eastern Carbon Aviation Campus celebrated its grand opening on Thursday, Jan. 15, with a ribbon joining ceremony at the facility.
“Rather than doing a ribbon cutting today, initially, we were going to fabricate a big plane that we were then going to use a cutting torch to cut in half. I thought that might be a little bit of bad luck,” joked Zak Konakis, department head of Technology, Design, and Technical Education at USUE. “It felt more appropriate for us to come together, because the successes we often attribute to individual efforts in a very visible setting. What we don’t get to see is how often and how much work is going into these projects to get them to come together. Having all of the stars align and making sure that everything is in a place where it can grow.”
The ceremony gathered local dignitaries, USU faculty members and students to celebrate the new era of aviation for the school.
Initially launched in 2019, the Price branch of the USU aviation program was optimistic to have a single plane and a handful of students. However, in the years since it has exploded in popularity, leading to the program’s expansion at the Carbon County Airport.
“From my perspective, it’s been a great heavy lift,” said Aviation Technology Department Head Bruce Miller. “We’ve continued to move along, and we’re here to give students opportunities … We’re here because of the community and the support to bring this program.”
The university offers a wide variety of aviation programs to take advantage of the new facility. This includes Bachelor’s programs in aviation technology, Associate’s programs in airframe maintenance and even a Master’s degree program in aviation sciences.
Vice President of Statewide Residential Campuses Kristian Olsen addressed the crowd, discussing the long journey to the facility’s completion: “This is a big day for us … This wasn’t an overnight success. It took a lot of years to pull together, and it was the collaboration between many, many groups.”
“This was a big collaboration between the state of Utah, between the county, between the university, between the city, just multiple entities coming together for the common good,” continued Olsen. “It’s really a great story of dedication to people coming together, too. They saw a vision, and when they got told no on the first time around, they said, ‘You know, what? No, it isn’t always no.’ We’re going to try again and make it happen.”
Speaking on the local impact of the facility, Carbon County Commissioner Larry Jensen stated,” I’ve been here seven years, and during the full seven years, there’s been a heavy effort in trying to bring new industry here to take the place of the coal mines that have shut down. And the tax burden that’s been shifted to homeowners.”
Jensen continued,” There’s a bright future for our community, and though those things are still in front of us a little ways, I think that our taxes will begin to be lowered. As a commission, we’ve committed that those projects that come in will help reduce your tax, not just add to the amount of tax that we can collect.”
Rounding out the speakers, attendees heard from new USU President Brad Mortensen,” We’re super excited to be a part of this. That’s how USU is supposed to work. This is a perfect model of that, to have the university sync up with the community, and thanks so much to the county and the city and our other partners here who helped to launch this.”
Following the remarks, Mortensen, alongside Statewide Vice President Ken White, joined the USU Aviation logo together, officially christening a new era of aviation in the Castle Country.
