AIRPORT/IBA Director Blake Swafford is pursuing another opportunity and will leave Paulding’s ongoing conflict over what happens to its airport in the future in other’s hands.
Swafford, executive director of both interrelated county agencies, accepted a private sector job with a Florida engineering company and stated that the controversy surrounding the effort to seek federal approval of commercial passenger flights at Silver Comet Field was not a factor in his decision to move on.
Swafford stated that the move allowed for his wife to be closer to family and that the opportunity “...was right for my career” and added that he’d learned a lot in the job over the years. Swafford helped shepherd Paulding’s airport in west Paulding County from its earliest days in 2007 through two airshows and on into its ongoing struggle, now mostly destined to be resolved one way or another, in the courts.
Paulding’s airport dubbed most recently Silver Comet Field was the first airport built in the state in 25 years and deciding if it will remain an aviation-only airport has been debated now since 2013, and has increasingly drawn criticism regarding its dominance over other issues of concern to residents.
Opposition to adding the commercial component led to a series of litigation that continues to the present over what some feel was the product of a closed negotiation and approval of a contract with Propeller Investments, the company that has sought to add limited commercial service.
Ongoing ligation is centered on three lawsuits thus far with the county filing suit against the airport authority and the Industrial Building Authority and Silver Comet Terminal Partners filing suit against the county and the airport authority.
Paulding’s current Board of Commissioners does not support adding commercial flights to Silver Comet Field with the exception of Chairman Austin, who concludes his term at the end of this year.
Airport Authority Chairman Calvin Thompson was reluctant to have to announce Swafford’s departure, but he said that the airport authority’s process to find a new director was already underway.
Swafford moved over to being Paulding’s airport director after starting as the county’s DOT director, in 2000. Under his watch as both airport and IBA director he helped oversee the Atlanta Film Studio in Hiram owned by the building authority and two industrial parks. The soundstage in Hiram, slow to attract business in its earliest period as was expected, has been used by movie and television projects including the latest installment of the Vacation movie series and later a Jackie Robinson biopic.

Blake Swafford, Silver Comet sign. (Photo: R. Grant)