Huntsville mayor calls London trip 'huge success' - WAFF-TV: News, Weather and Sports for Huntsville, AL

HUNTSVILLE, AL (WAFF) - Mayor Tommy Battle returned from London Thursday evening and called the trip a “huge success”.

Battle said the trip not only resulted in the announcement of the SES expansion, bringing 450 new jobs to Huntsville, but also laid the ground work for even more companies to come to the area.

“This is one of the largest world wide trade shows for aerospace and there are a lot of people out there who are in aerospace but not in Huntsville, so we talked to a lot of them about the value of coming to Huntsville,” Battle said.

The mayor says he expects many of those talks will result in new industries and new companies coming to the Huntsville area over the next 15 to 20 years.

“Our ultimate goal was to provide jobs for the area,” Battle said. “We had a lot of people that showed a lot of interest, follow up meetings will be had and ultimately we’ll end up with more jobs and more opportunity in our area.”

The trip cost about $9,000 of tax payer money but Battle said the expense will pay off quickly.

“The 450 jobs that SES announced means probably a 20 or 30 million dollar investment into this community that happens year in and year out and without investing money into recruitment you don’t have those kind of announcements,” Battle said.

SES announced earlier this week it would be expanding and would begin the hiring process immediately.

 Copyright 2014 WAFF. All rights reserved.