World View CEO Says Co-Founders New Venture Won’t Deter Tucson Company

By: Terri Jo Neff

World View CEO Ryan Hartman says company remains committed to being a strong contributor to the Pima County economy

World View Enterprises, the Tucson-based purveyor of high-altitude Stratollite balloons, is moving forward with two launches this summer, and CEO Ryan Hartman says the fact the company’s co-founders have started a new business that competes against World View’s long-standing vision of sending a manned capsule into the stratosphere will not deter those plans.

“World View remains a pioneer in stratospheric technologies,” CEO and President Ryan Hartman told Real Estate Daily News. “We’re excited about bringing our patented Stratollite to the market as well as our future products.”

World View has already conducted several high-altitude flights on behalf of NASA, the Department of Defense, and private companies. Hartman says a research and development flight is currently slated for later this month, while a planned August flight will carry multiple payloads for a variety of customers.

Those Stratollite flights and the data gleaned from them will be critical, Hartman says, in enabling World View to one day forge ahead with its Voyager manned balloon flights. The idea of Voyager garnered national media attention in late 2013 when former Space Shuttle Commander Mark Kelly joined the company as a strategic advisor to help develop the craft and select its crew.

Kelly, who is running for the U.S. Senate seat held by Martha McSally, has not responded to inquiries submitted through his campaign spokesman about what work Kelly actually performed for the company.

Hartman took the helm at World View in February 2019 after serving as CEO and President of Boeing subsidiary Insitu. Before that he was part of Raytheon’s Unmanned Systems (UAS) program in Tucson. He replaced Jane Poynter, who along with fellow co-founder Taber MacCallum announced last month that they have started Space Perspective in Florida.

The new company, according to Poynter, plans to launch passengers into the stratosphere via Spaceship Neptune, which like Voyager would be a manned pod or capsule attached to a high-altitude balloon.

Poynter said the couple remain “World View’s wildest cheerleaders” despite their new venture, which includes other features which are eerily similar to World View’s Voyager program.

Hartman declined to comment on whether Space Perspective could utilize technologies, intellectual property, or proprietary business information belonging to or created by World View. He also declined to address whether the former directors were subject to a non-compete clause.

But in January 2016, MacCallum and Poynter were running World View when supporters helped arrange $15 million of Pima County taxpayer money for a state-of-the-art complex that includes offices, design and manufacturing areas, and a launchpad christened Spaceport Tucson.

Expenditure of the funds was approved by the county’s board of supervisors as part of a 20-year economic development agreement that requires the company to remit an annual lease payment. At the end of the 20 years, county taxpayers are expected to have recouped the capital investment and World View has a right to purchase the building.

It is an agreement Hartman says is not only still viable for World View but also remains part of the company’s long-term business plan.

“We remain committed to being a strong contributor to the Pima County economy,” he said. “Tucson is the right place for us to grow our business. We also remain committed to fulfilling the obligations of our lease, which returns a return on investment to the county in both cash and jobs.”

The $15 million economic deal includes a provision that World View must employ 400 full-time equivalent employees (FTEs) at an average salary of $60,000 in year 16 of the agreement. For now, World View is required to have at least 100 FTEs at an average salary of $50,000, with the employment thresholds jumping over the years to 200, then 300, and then 400.

For 2019, the company reported 125 FTEs and $62,000 average salary, according to Hartman. And despite an emergency shift this spring from building balloons to manufacturing life-saving PPE for COVID-19 healthcare workers Hartman says he remains hopeful that the company will fulfill its 2020 employment target as the pandemic wanes.

Not that it really matters, because public records show Pima County cannot terminate the World View agreement solely for the company’s failure to fulfill any employment provision by 10 percent or more if that failure is due to “circumstances beyond World View’s reasonable control (including, without limitation, unforeseeable economic conditions or inability to recruit qualified personnel).”

In April, World View was one of several Pima County tenants granted a six-month deferral on their lease payment due to “the harsh economic conditions” stemming from COVID-19. Other tenants include Bank of America, University of Arizona, and Banner Health.

Hartman noted the companies still have to make the lease payments with interest.

Not everyone has supported the $15 million taxpayer incentive. The agreement was challenged in court by the Goldwater Institute, but those efforts failed to negate the deal. Now it is on Hartman to make World View a profitable and viable endeavor and ensure taxpayers aren’t left with a pricey office complex and launching pad but no tenants.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As of July 1, the Arizona Corporation Commission website shows MacCallum and Poynter as World View board directors and officers despite Hartman’s statement that the pair is no longer associated with the company except as shareholders.

About the Author
Terri Jo Neff is a freelance journalist based in Cochise County who covers government, business, the courts, and public safety across southern Arizona. Her work has been recognized by the Arizona Press Club. She can be contacted directly at CJW_Media@yahoo.com.

[mepr-show rules=”58038″]Removed from this article at Ally Miller’s request after publication. The following quote had been made in writing to Ms. Neff.  “I explained to Mr. Hartman that my opinion is the founders of World View hoodwinked county administrator Chuck Huckelberry and the other four members of the Board of Supervisors into funding the building and furnishings for their ill-conceived startup,” she said. “I sincerely hope folks in Florida understand this is the same space tourism sales pitch that garnered the same international coverage back in 2016, and it turned out to be nothing more than a cool rendering of a spaceship that was never built.”[/mepr-show]