A few years ago, hangar owners at General Mitchell International Airport (KMKE) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, started encountering difficulty when it came time to renew land leases with managers of the county-owned airport.
Worse yet, those same hangar owners, many with decades at the airport, felt cut off from airport management — so much so that a few owners dismantled their hangars and left.
Milwaukee County owns both KMKE and Lawrence J Timmerman Airport (KMWC).
KMWC is on the northern end of Milwaukee near where highways 41 and 175 merge.
KMKE is a few miles south of downtown Milwaukee stuffed between Highway 41 and Lake Michigan.
Both are surrounded by development, of course.
And both are experiencing what airports all over the United States are experiencing: Challenges from multiple different angles.
Airports are the targets of noise and pollution complaints. Safety is always a concern for non-pilots. In some cases, airports are the only relatively open space for miles around — space that could be made into something else. In other cases, those who own and/or manage the airport want to go in a different direction.
It’s this different direction that has caused consternation for long-term tenants at Mitchell Field.
A Grassroots Movement
In an attempt to preserve their place at the airports, a group of 10 Milwaukee area pilots got together to form the Greater Milwaukee General Aviation Association (GMGAA) as a non-profit organization.
From the GMGAA website: “The mission of the Greater Milwaukee General Aviation Association is to promote the safety of operations and continued development and inclusion of general aviation at KMKE and KMWC in cooperation with the pilots, users, the Airport Authority, Milwaukee County government, and the community at large.”
That seems like a reasonable mission. But then again, I’m not objective when it comes to general aviation.
Several months ago I spoke with both Jim Hausch and Scott Fisher about their struggles at KMKE.
Airport management had been non-responsive. No calls. No emails. No meetings. Despite repeated requests.
Today, Jim is president/secretary and Scott is vice president of GMGAA.
From GMGAA’s inaugural email newsletter: “One would think that the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA), Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), and the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) would have the role of GA advocacy well-covered, but both AOPA and NBAA strongly encourage an organized, local effort. To some degree, the EAA model of local chapters proves the power and importance of a grassroots component.”
As good as AOPA, EAA, and NBAA are they can’t be all places and all knowing. It just doesn’t work that way.
EAA president Jack Pelton’s speaks to the grassroots topic in his April 2024 column in Sport Aviation: “One of the most important parts of EAA is our chapter network. One of the founding visions in 1953 was focused on reaching people at the local level.”
Local is where it is at.
GMGAA is now that local group in Milwaukee.
For Jim, Scott, and the eight others who stepped up when they heard “someone should do something,” good on ya.
As of this writing the group was nearing 40 paid members.
