Out of the Rice Fields West of Houston ...

… grows an airport. Draw a line 35 miles west of downtown Houston, then directly south to the Gulf Coast. That southerly line represents a history of rice farming. West of Houston, the tentacles of the city are planting urban seeds, and it is here that pilot and entrepreneur Ron Henricksen purchased some 600 acres to build an airport, Houston Executive.  To date, 5,050 feet of asphalt runway and parallel taxiway have been built, along with an FBO ramp and temporary facilities. Next up is an FBO, Henricksen Jet Center, and a planned extension of the runway to 7000 feet. Then comes some 200 acres of inside the fence development, and a couple of hundred more adjacent acres for business development.  Of course, there’s more than rice here; underground lies pipelines and oil fields nearby continue to slowly pump crude out of the ground. Only minutes to the east is the “energy corridor†where companies in all aspects of oil and gas exploration and production reside. Nearby is a massive Igloo plant. They all use business aviation.  With impressive investments at the Sugar Land Airport southwest of Houston, the western corridor of a bulging city appears to be ahead of the aviation curve. (More on this in the November/December issue of AIRPORT BUSINESS magazine.)  Thanks for reading.  jfi