OXFORD – On a regular weekday at Oxford Aviation, workers in brightly-lit hangars strip paint from airplanes, pound out metal, or glue together foam for seats.

The employees are often touching up 12 to 13 aircraft at a time.

“We’re always to capacity,” owner Jim Horowitz said during a recent tour of his facility at the Oxford County Regional Airport. “We have a backlog of three to four months.”

After successfully growing his high-end aircraft refurbishing company in Oxford for the past 17 years, Horowitz is on the brink of tripling the size of his work force, but the growth will happen at the Sanford Regional Airport rather than here, pending final approval of public funding. In Sanford he will work on larger planes for more lucrative contracts. And he is promising to create at least 200 jobs.

That promise echoes other job promises he has made over the years, which in one case was not met.

“The job projections have always fallen short,” Oxford County Commissioner Steve Merrill said. “He’s a little optimistic about that.”

Horowitz differs. He says he’s flat-out met job creation requirements.

Regardless, the fact remains that Horowitz has built a thriving company that offers solid paychecks to a staff of 66. And that’s a rare gift to a state troubled by the loss of its industrial base.

As a condition for a 1996 community development block grant for the town of Oxford to build a waterline to the growing airport business, Oxford Aviation promised to eventually have in place 80 jobs, according to Orman Whitcomb, director of the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development.

Another $100,000 development fund loan approved the same year stipulated that 50 new jobs appear, Whitcomb added. According to state records, the conditions of both financial accords were met.

Today, 10 years after that funding was issued, Horowitz employs 55 people at his Oxford business and 11 more at his Fryeburg outfit, according to his figures. Two years ago, he opened a smaller maintenance service at Eastern Slopes Regional Airport in Fryeburg.

Public economic development money is often coupled with a provision that recipients create employment opportunities.

Horowitz says he kept every job promise he made, and that any inability to create more jobs was the result of his failure to convince the county to extend the airport’s 3,000-foot runway. A longer runway would have allowed larger jets to land, presumably boosting the amount of customers and calling for more workers.

Oxford County owns the airport, which is overseen by a board of three commissioners. The county leases hangar and office space to Oxford Aviation.

“We exceeded every job estimation we’ve done,” Horowitz said. “The only numbers that have ever been described that may have been not met were tied to the runway length.”

Merrill said Horowitz knew all along there were obstacles to extending the runway.

“As far as the board of commissioners were concerned, we never felt it was a sure thing to begin with,” Merrill said Friday. “There were so many restrictions and limitations. It was a pie in the sky notion.”

Whitcomb searched state archives to find information about the 10-year-old grant and its job creation estimates.

“All I have says the benefit was met,” Whitcomb said. “It may very well have been modified.”

Whitcomb said that in certain cases the state forgives organizations for not meeting their original pledges. The state generally demands that for every $20,000 given, businesses establish one new position. According to Sun Journal articles published at the time, the CDBG grant was $326,000, although Whitcomb said it appeared to be $400,000 based on his records, which required a minimum of 20 new jobs.

“We will try to hold them to that as much as possible because that was part of the way we scored their application,” Whitcomb said. “If there was a reason beyond their control, that figure could be adjusted back all the way to the original 20 we would have required.”

A December 1999 Sun Journal article reported that state officials dropped the requirement because they were satisfied with the 12 positions Horowitz created, bringing the team up to about 45. Officials quoted in the article acknowledged the difficulties Horowitz had growing at a relatively small airport.

The state Department of Economic and Community Development also asked for positions for low-income wage earners and was satisfied with the results, Whitcomb said.

Horowitz says the average pay for his employees is $15 to $16 an hour. Maine’s minimum wage now is $6.75 an hour and is to grow to $7 next year.

Oxford Selectman Caldwell Jackson, who sat on the town’s board in 1996, said he recalled the state shelving the job expectation.

“Most of them were,” he said, referring to the jobs developed at the company. “There were a few jobs that weren’t created. The department just waived them. The penalty would have come back on the town.”

Because the town administered the grant, the town would have had to reimburse the state if the grant conditions were not met.

Howard Munday, who was Oxford’s town manager in 1996, said Horowitz ran a great business that helped Oxford. “It pumped a lot of money into the local economy, attracting business here and helping local people,” he said.

Oxford Aviation also rents hangars and offices at the airport from the county for $1,312 per month, and his is the only business at the small, rural airport on Number Six Road. He has over the years asked commissioners to stretch the runway to 4,500 or 5,000 feet to attract larger jets, which he said would help him make jobs.

But commissioners never expanded the runway, which would have cost between $9 million and $11 million, according to a 2002 runway extension study.

A statement by the Federal Aviation Administration in 2003 advised commissioners against extending the runway because of its proximity to the Auburn-Lewiston Municipal Airport and the lack of activity at the airport by larger planes. Not finding the need to extend the runway, the aviation administration said there was no need to disturb nearby wetlands.

Now, Horowitz has begun an ambitious $10 million project in Sanford, which owns a 6,000-foot runway, to service larger corporate and private business jets. He has said in the next two years he will create 200 jobs for painters, cabinet makers, welders and avionics specialists, among others, with an average wage of $18 an hour.

To do this, the town of Sanford applied for a $400,000 CDBG matching grant, which will be passed on to Oxford Aviation, according to Les Stevens, Sanford’s economic affairs director. The grant will be matched privately.

Sanford also applied for a $1.175 million matching grant from the federal Economic Development Administration for site development. Sanford’s residents approved a $670,000 seven-year bond toward meeting the match, an amount that will be augmented by $250,000 in cash from the town reserves. The town and state also offered tax incentives to the company.

Oxford Aviation spokeswoman Kimberly Clarke said most of the jobs will be filled with people from the Sanford area.

Oxford County Commissioner Chairman David Duguay said this area has not missed out on possible jobs.

“It was considered not feasible to expand,” Duguay said Thursday. “A runway expansion review was done, and it was determined it was not possible to do that, the type of aircraft opportunity was not there.”

But Horowitz said commissioners in past years showed a lack of interest and enthusiasm in supporting his business.

“We invested in ourselves diligently, and we were very disappointed we couldn’t put together local, political interest,” he said.