By: Dawn Zoldi
At the Shore to Soar 2026 (S2S) in Cape May, New Jersey, a panel moderated by NARTP Board Chairman Mark Loeben, a 31-year Air Force veteran (Major General Ret.) and active American Airlines 787 captain, featured NARTP President and CEO Howard Kyle and Director of Operations Rocco Mancuso, focused on the National Aviation Research and Technology Park (NARTP). The three explained how the Garden State is building the infrastructure for advanced air mobility (AAM) and why they believe their efforts will help to lead the future of aviation.
A Campus with FAA DNA
NARTP sits on 50 acres of federal land on the grounds of the FAA’s William J. Hughes Technical Center at Atlantic City International Airport. The park leases directly from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), a relationship that gives tenants proximity to one of the most consequential aviation regulatory and testing bodies in the world.
“We are not an office park,” Loeben explained. “We are a center that wants to provide an ecosystem for advancement of niche aerospace technologies.”
The distinction matters. Each building is custom-fitted to tenant needs, designed primarily as laboratory space, rather than generic square footage. Building One is fully leased and occupied. Building Two recently completed construction and is currently undergoing fitout, with multiple tenants in active negotiations. The long-term vision calls for seven buildings in total.
The FAA center campus also hosts the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the U.S. Coast Guard and Atlantic City International Airport. The density of federal presence translates into the kind of high-speed data and network connectivity that research and development (R&D) companies rarely find outside of major government campuses.
Research Projects Already Delivering
Kyle and Mancuso walked the audience through two active research programs that illustrate the park’s operational momentum:
- $2.1 million congressionally designated project approved through the National Science and Technology pipeline, focuses on opening airspace for UAS testing and integration in the region. Funds are expected to flow soon.
- Funded at roughly $2.2 million, addresses autonomous certification at both military and civilian airfields, specifically the integration of robotic ground systems for foreign object debris (FOD) detection on runways.
For the latter project, Mancuso explained that the technology itself is not novel. What doesn’t yet exist is the certification pathway authorizing its use in active airport environments. NARTP submitted the first phase reports to the FAA, which provided the data needed to begin building those standards.
“That project is really the precursor to the eventual use of uncrewed aircraft in the airport environment for tasks including aircraft inspection and ground operations,” Kyle added.
Both projects reflect NARTP’s deliberate strategy of not waiting for the regulatory framework to arrive, but instead helping to build it.
Connecting the Corridor
Kyle also articulated plans for an ambitious regional aviation innovation corridor stretching from NARTP in Atlantic County northward through Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst and across to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. The triangle, shaped by partnerships with U.S. Air Mobility Command and the U.S. Transportation Command, forms a R&D corridor anchored in defense logistics and next-generation airspace integration.
“This is not Silicon Valley envy,” Kyle noted, pushing back against any notion that the concept is simply aspirational. “We have laid the foundation.”
NARTP secured a partnership with the New Jersey Port Authority as part of a nationally selected FAA UAS testing and integration initiative. Under that arrangement, the Port Authority covers the New York-Newark metropolitan area while NARTP manages the New Jersey footprint, anchored by the FAA Tech Center.
The park also established the New Jersey Flight Information Exchange (FIX), a data-sharing infrastructure designed to make low-altitude UAS operations safer and more coordinated across the state. Kyle noted that data is already flowing through it.
The Academic Consortium Play
In parallel, NARTP continues to build out an institutional track through what Kyle called an academic research consortium for aviation. Nearly every major research university in New Jersey has agreed in principle to participate. The structure would align each institution with its areas of genuine strength, rather than having universities compete for the same federal grants and pull in opposite directions. Princeton’s AI Center and Rowan University’s Digital Engineering Lab are already in active partnership discussions with NARTP, in connection with an AI capability and modeling and simulation lab space planned for Building Two.
“The challenge,” Kyle acknowledged, “is getting universities that are in competition with each other to work collaboratively. We accomplished the first step, and that in itself is something.” Kean University, noted for its FAA-recognized drone training curriculum, was also flagged as a key addition to the consortium.
State Momentum, Political Visibility
The political winds also appear to be shifting in NARTP’s favor. Kyle revealed that New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill visited the facility recently, accompanied by the Assembly majority speaker. The governor, a former helicopter pilot, came away impressed, according to Kyle, and is willing to provide bridge funding to accelerate the park’s next phase (A follow-up from the governor’s office arrived the same day as the panel).
NARTP is home to the Aerospace Innovation Center, New Jersey’s fifth Strategic Innovation Center and the state’s first dedicated to aviation and aerospace innovation, backed by an $8.6 million NJEDA investment. This adds another layer of state credibility.
Kyle described the broader vision as an innovation expressway running from Camden County down through Atlantic County. It extends New Jersey’s technology development corridor far south of where it has traditionally concentrated.
One Airspace
John Scull Walker, a former FAA airspace director and NARTP board member, offered an observation from the audience that captured the larger stakes. “There will not be segregated airspace,” Walker said. “There is one airspace.”
He drew parallels to similar corridor development on the Gulf Coast, where DoD partnerships and early cargo operators like Elroy Air are shaping integration models that will apply nationally. (Watch Elroy Air CEO on the Dawn of Autonomy podcast, with Martin Solutions). In other words, solutions being worked out in places like Atlantic County are not local experiments, but rather national templates.
That mindset, that local infrastructure produces national answers, is exactly what NARTP, New Jersey’s Strategic Innovation Centers and leaders have been betting on. With $4.3 million in active federal research funding, a governor’s commitment of bridge capital and New Jersey’s first aerospace-focused Strategic Innovation Center open for tenants, NARTP doesn’t need to make a case for what Atlantic County could become. It’s showing what it already is.