“Appleton International Airport director Abe Weber doesn’t let anything get in the way of a good idea.
Weber spent 10 years trying to secure a direct-to-Dallas flight, knowing there was strong connectivity between the region and Texas. He also knew there were local companies with plants in Mexico, which is an easy connection from Dallas. When it finally happened in December 2023, he wanted to share it with the community in an iconic way: by driving a team of longhorns down College Avenue to the airport.
“And, you know, we found out that longhorn cattle are not native to Appleton,” Weber says. So he pivoted to the next-best idea: a bunch of riders on horseback.
“We weren’t able to secure a permit to shut the whole College Avenue down, so we did have to make some adjustments,” says Weber, who arranged for riders to be filmed on sidewalks at various recognizable locations: Lawrence University, Houdini Plaza, the Hilton Appleton Paper Valley, the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center.
The result is a memorable promotional video that celebrates the fact that the airport now has an American Airlines flight direct to Dallas.”
Excerpt by: Nikki Kallio from Gaining Altitude: Appleton Airport reaches new heights, Insight on Business
Abe Weber is a 2011 graduate of UW-Green Bay with an M.S. in Management.