Smith named Airport Commissioner
January 27, 2017
Sociologist Emerson Smith has been appointed to the Richland County Airport Commission, which oversees the operation of the Jim Hamilton – L. B. Owens Airport. A commercial pilot and flight instructor, he is president of Metromark Market Research in Columbia, providing strategic guidance for hospital operations, law firm litigation, and global business planning, including aerospace. He received his BA from the University of Texas at Austin, his MA from Texas Christian University, and his PhD from Emory University. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Exeter in Devon, England, UK.
He is a past commander of the South Carolina Wing of the United States Air Force Auxiliary, Civil Air Patrol. He is also on the clinical research faculty of the School of Medicine at the University of South Carolina in Columbia.
His primary responsibility on the Commission is to work as an airport liaison with residents of neighborhoods surrounding this historic airfield, listening to neighbors, and providing education and information on the airport, aircraft operations, and on the history of the airport, the Curtiss-Wright hanger, its aircraft, its pilots and passengers, as well as on the history of flight and the aerospace industry.
The airport, known as Owens Field when it was founded in 1929, was created as the municipal airport for Columbia and a training base for military and civilian pilots. It is the most convenient airport to the City of Columbia and Richland County and serves as a base for both corporate and private aircraft.
