The last of three parts
“They’ve already been out here,” said Alex Perl, technology and operations manager for Sierra Academy of Aeronautics.
Perl was speaking of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s (Cal Fire) recent visit and inspection of dormitories and other spaces currently housing the flight school — facilities that may become available for lease by the County.
Cal Fire is the state’s fire department under the California Natural Resources Agency, and is responsible for fire control and forest management on 31 million acres of state forestland. In 2024-2025, the Cal Fire budget was $4.2 billion. Currently, the state agency has 12,223 employees.
“I did walk around the Sierra buildings with our folks,” said Sean Bowe, Cal Fire assistant chief at Castle.
“We’re not in the business of putting anyone out of business,” Bowe said. “We heard rumors the buildings would become vacant.”
Those buildings in question have housed Sierra Academy at Castle Commerce Center for the past 20 years. According to Sierra, it “has established a reputation of providing quality flight training for more than 45 years.
“We have provided flight training services for more than 50 airlines and major aviation organizations around the world. The FAA has issued more than 75,000 certificates to our graduates,” according to the company website.
Speaking from Sierra’s headquarters in front of a large bookcase with shelves lined with various model airplanes, Perl said the company’s days at Castle may be numbered.
“If we lose our buildings we can no longer do our ground school classes,” Perl said. “That will be the end of Sierra.”
Sierra Academy’s Director of Operations Stefano Marras agrees with that assessment, adding “If our operations stop at Castle, that will be 95 percent of the airport’s flight operations. How can the Fixed Base Operator (KT Aero) survive?”
In fact, the County has had Sierra on a month-to-month lease since October 2022.
“We’ve been requesting a new long-term lease, but the County has told us they want to go in another direction,” Perl said.
Additionally, Perl said the County has had no contact with Sierra since the end of March.
“They will not talk to us,” Perl said. “They won’t return our phone calls.”
Marras added, “Cal Fire can go anywhere and operate. We can only work out of an airport.”
According to County spokesperson Mike North, “The County did notify Sierra of the plans to terminate the month-to-month contract with Sierra for the dorms.”
However, he said, “as of today, the County has not terminated any contracts with Sierra and is working with Sierra to find other options for housing.”
In a candid conversation, Perl said the County’s antipathy toward the flight school has been unmistakable.
“They (the County) want to 100 percent put us out of business,” he said, acknowledging that the company’s ability to pay the county its taxes and fees on time was severely hampered by the covid lockdowns in 2020.
“But not enough to deserve kicking us out,” he said, further remarking that the County is acting to “hurt the local people for a state agency.”
Perl further alleged that former airport coordinator George Clover admitted to him, “They (the County) don’t know what to do with the airport.”
Cal Fire, according to Perl, has been strategically positioning itself to occupy Sierra’s buildings near the airport, which includes classrooms, kitchen, and dormitories. For example, he said, and North has confirmed, Cal Fire has routinely paid Sierra directly for any use of its facilities.
“Cal Fire rents rooms from us for its trainings,” Perl said.
Now, he said, Cal Fire stands to take over Sierra’s buildings and pay the County directly for their usage.
“I was told by (Community & Economic Development Director) Mark Mimms that, ‘We want to get rid of the middle guy,’” an apparent thinly veiled reference, Perl says, to Sierra Academy.
Sierra, established in 1964 and in business at Castle since 2005, trains pilots for commercial and private licenses and offers continuing flight instructor courses. It is currently staffed with 27 employees and 14 contracted flight instructors with an enrollment of 73 students.
In 2024, according to Perl, Sierra logged 115-120 flights per week and used a total of 70,000 gallons of aviation fuel.
According, Jim Price, owner of the airport’s former aviation refueling company, Sierra Academy was the major source of revenue for his Gemini Flight Support.
“I don’t know how this new outfit coming in (KT Aero) will survive without Sierra,” Price said.
Perl suggests that, “We’re willing to work with the County so that we don’t have to close.”
However, he said, there doesn’t appear to be much chance of that.
County agreements support Cal Fire training
Cal Fire operations appear to be growing at Castle, and in a twist of irony, that growth may result in forcing out the airport’s current main source of revenue, Sierra Academy of Aeronautics.
Merced County has contracted with Cal Fire since 1988 to provide fire fighting personnel in 19 fire stations, with the County retaining responsibility for equipment, vehicles, facilities, and support staff.
Most recently, the Board of Supervisors approved a “retroactive revenue contract” on March 11 with Cal Fire in the amount of $822,600 for “training facility rental,” through January 31, 2028.
In the agreement, Merced County Fire Department provides Cal Fire with “facility use of administrative offices, conference room, apparatus bay, bathrooms and a classroom to support 40 students.”
Under contract, Cal Fire leases three acres of county-owned property adjacent to and part of Castle Airport. The state agency essentially rents space through the county Fire Department to provide fire technology training at the Training Bureau, the Fire Department’s training facility at Castle.
These Training Bureau facilities are headquartered at 3405 Hardstand Avenue in a building that once housed the former Castle Air Force Base Fire Department. It is next door to the facility housing the airport tower and KT Aero, Castle’s new Fixed Base Operator, and is still technically part of the airport.
Where once the FBO building and airport tower could be seen easily by drivers approaching on Airflight Drive, the County’s fire training grounds, located in front of the airport, now obscures the airport’s only administrative building from view.
In 2024 Cal Fire trained 1,272 firefighters, including 84 students from Columbia College and 27 students from Merced College. Also, an additional 124 county firefighters were trained at the county’s Castle training site.
Though Cal Fire has already been training students at the County’s Castle training center, Cal Fire formally announced its official establishment on Monday.
The Castle fire training site is the fourth training center to be established in the state and will provide training in two of seven Fire Control academies.
Cal Fire estimates it will train approximately 1,600 Fire Control students at Castle in 2025.
The March 11 agreement also stipulates that Cal Fire is “also entering into rental agreements for use of the dormitories and other facilities aboard Castle to support the training to take place.”
These “dormitories and other facilities” are presently occupied by Sierra Academy.
Aside from training Merced and Columbia college students, Cal Fire will begin to instruct students from another community college district.
During its March 11 meeting, the Supervisors also approved a contract with State Center Community College District in Fresno to allow for the County “to receive payments for students attending fire service training at the Castle Training Facility.”
According to the contract, the county Fire Department “will be eligible to receive payments for students attending this training through SCCCD at the Castle Training Facility.”
The agreement states that State Center will pay the county Fire Department 60 percent of the state apportionment the college district receives from each full-time equivalent student earning hours at the facility.
This contract represents a potential increase in annual income for the County in the amount of $326,000, aside from Cal Fire’s annual lease agreement payment of $274,200 through 2028.
In comparison, Sierra’s lease contract with the County obligates the flight school to pay $217,298 annually.
Sierra Academy’s Perl stated the obvious: “We can’t compete with a state and federally funded agency. Of course, they can pay more and be a more lucrative tenant.”
Epilogue: The time for Castle’s progress is now
Despite public criticism over perceived missteps and lost opportunities, economic development at the Castle Commerce Center and Castle Airport may be poised to advance.
In an ebullient June 26 Times column, Merced County Supervisor Daron McDaniel stated he believes that Castle is “one of the most dynamic and forward-thinking redevelopment projects in the Central Valley.
“What was once dormant has become a growing hub of innovation, transportation, economic development, and community engagement.
“Castle Commerce Center has flourished into an industrial powerhouse, home to advanced manufacturing, aviation services, and logistics operations.”
While providing scant examples of Castle’s status as an “industrial powerhouse,” McDaniel’s enthusiasm continued, further claiming that TRC California “is projected to create more than 140 new jobs by 2025.”
Commenting on the Times’ Facebook page on July 26, former Castle Airport coordinator George Clover said: “I will agree that County leadership has a tremendous burden to improve the viability of the airport, and am cautiously optimistic that all is not lost.
“Unfortunately,” he continued, “there is enough neglect over the years that will now take a tremendous effort to overcome.”
Thirty years after Castle Air Force Base ended operations in Atwater, a cautious optimism, in Clover’s words, may be warranted as current conditions appear positive for growth.
County CEO Mark Hendrickson told the Times in a 2024 interview that several important initiatives are advancing now that will benefit the promotion of the airport for cargo and freight companies: Castle’s inland port designation, and the expanding freight activities of short-line operator Patriot Rail.
These, along with the completion of the Atwater-Merced Expressway, which will lead traffic from Highway 99 north of Atwater toward Castle and beyond, are the right foundations upon which to build the airport’s economic potential, Hendrickson said.
As to the three-decade stretch of essential inactivity at the Castle Airport, Hendrickson believes its development was always hindered by its isolation from main corridors of commercial truck travel such as Interstate 80 near Mather Air Force Base, considered to be a successful Air Force base conversion.
On the upside, the County, he noted, has been proactive in securing a $49 million grant from the California State Transportation Agency in 2023 to develop Castle’s inland port, part of Governor Gavin Newson’s plan to develop port and freight infrastructure to support the state’s movement of goods.
In a Merced Focus article from July 19, 2023, Hendrickson claimed that the County will eventually develop 70 acres for the inland port, and estimated that the new port will create “around 250 jobs.”
How soon the inland port will fully develop and those jobs filled, the County hasn’t committed to saying.
While a majority of the airport’s developed ramp space is no longer dedicated to aviation, Hendrickson said TRC California continues to thrive.
“They’re booked every day,” he said.
The County originally developed Castle’s autonomous vehicle testing grounds at the airport with a $6.5 million state grant secured by then-Assemblyman Adam Gray. Though located on former airport property, the testing grounds are not part of the inland port.
The County is also banking on the outcomes of its $225,000 Phase 1 feasibility study contract with global consulting firm KPMG. The study is expected to provide the County with more options to develop the airport into a thriving freight and cargo enterprise.
“If that’s true, then that’s a positive development for the airport,” admitted former airport manager Jeff Sweet.
Hendrickson said that the County also has plans to support the inland port project with the construction of four warehouses.
“Once warehouses are built, you’ll see Castle airport take off,” he said “Patriot Rail is a key to making that happen.”
Only time will tell, the old wisdom goes.
After waiting 30 years for a sign of progress at the airport, county residents will have to continue waiting until the inland port is fully developed and freight and cargo operations are operational.
Development of the inland port, according to Hendrickson, is critical to bringing freight operations to Castle Airport.
After the progress of the autonomous vehicle testing project (TRC California) and the Merced Inland Port project, the County’s development strategy for Castle Commerce Center is to focus now on Castle Airport.
This appears to be a development strategy that, once informed by a comprehensive feasibility study, may just tip the scales toward success.
For a community whose hopes for an economic boom generated by the resources left by the U.S. Air Force in 1995, especially the airport — considered by many to be the jewel of Castle — any positive development is good news and couldn’t come at a better moment, though it’s taken three decades to get here.