By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

AUBURN – Auburn-Lewiston Municipal Airport director John McGonagill sees the future of the airport in an inch-thick stack of business cards.

The cards represent about 70 people, potential investors who stopped by his booth at the Experimental Aircraft Association AirVenture conference in Oshkosh, Wis., last month.

From that stack of 70 business cards, 11 rise to the top. They belong to international companies eyeing the American market that build specialty aircraft and aircraft equipment.

“Here’s an Italian company, and one from Australia, one from France, and another Italian company,” he says, placing the cards on the table one by one. Each card represented a person who stopped by his booth more than once.

The crown jewel was the card of Jan Bezemek, a trade official from the Czech Republic, who was scouting new locations for 15 companies. McGonagill said the two had a long conversation.

“They want to trade, to sell their aircraft, and Auburn looks pretty good for them,” McGonagill said.

Auburn’s foreign trade zone status – which lets manufacturers bring in raw goods tariff-free – combined with Pine Tree Zone tax benefits and the city’s rail connections, make it a great place for European investors to break into the American marketplace.

One company, deciding to open operations near the Auburn airport, could mean millions of dollars in new tax revenue for the city and the airport. That’s what the airport is going need to continue to expand.

“I am almost maxed-out on size, and the only way I’m going to be able to grow is to bring in new revenue,” McGonagill said.

That’s why he went to the conference last month. Billed as the largest gathering of its kind, it drew about 700,000 visitors and more than 2,000 booths. McGonagill’s was one of two municipal airports with displays. There was lots of room to make an impression.

“People from New England were pretty surprised to see us there,” McGonagill said. “New England airports don’t promote themselves, not normally. They told me it’s about time.”

The event ran July 25 through 31, and the Auburn-Lewiston booth was open the entire time. McGonagill, his family and three local volunteers handed out more than 1,000 copies of Down East’s 1999 Lewiston-Auburn edition, 700 business cards and more than 500 pounds of promotional material about the Twin Cities.

The booth and materials were provided to McGonagill by the Chamber of Commerce, the Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments and the Lewiston Auburn Economic Growth Council.

McGonagill will hand over his stack of business cards to the Lewiston Auburn Economic Growth Council on Monday.

“I did the legwork; now I’m hoping they can close the deal,” he said.