Kansas builds the planes. We make sure Kansas keeps building them.
What's wrong. What it costs the patient. What we're doing about it. This page lays out Doc's record on aerospace & defense in three layers: the diagnosis, the prescription, and the receipts.
Kansas builds the planes the Air Force flies, the fighters Spirit ships, and the tankers McConnell refuels with. Kansas builds. We make sure Kansas keeps building.
What we're doing about it.
- NDAA FY2026 (S. 1071) — Fort Riley ATC tower + training course
- Boeing $1B Wichita investment — championed May 2026
- WSU Tech workforce training center — partnership
In detail.
Wichita is the Air Capital of the World, and that title is held by a single integrated workforce: Spirit AeroSystems, Textron, Boeing, Cessna, Beechcraft, and the supply chain feeding them. Spirit AeroSystems alone employs approximately 12,000 Kansans in the Wichita metro — the largest private employer in the city. When the aerospace cluster wins, southern Kansas wins; when it stumbles, every restaurant, school district, and rural-route commute around it feels it. Doc treats the aerospace cluster as load-bearing infrastructure, not as one industry among many.
On May 11, 2026, Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg joined Doc in Wichita to announce a $1 billion Boeing investment in the city as part of the broader "Boeing Backs America" commitment — including a WSU Tech workforce training center in South Wichita. Boeing recently acquired Spirit AeroSystems, which means the Boeing commitment IS the Spirit commitment. The training center secures the pipeline of welders, machinists, and avionics technicians the cluster needs over the next decade.
On the defense side: NDAA FY2026 (S. 1071) carried Kansas-specific language Doc fought to include — funding for a new air-traffic-control tower at Fort Riley and an expanded training course at the post. Fort Riley is Kansas's largest military installation; Fort Leavenworth, McConnell AFB, and the 22nd Air Refueling Wing round out a defense footprint that anchors the state. Doc has been on each of those bases multiple times this term, and the bills he files reflect what base commanders, NCOs, and the surrounding communities have told him they need.
Kansas does not need to convince anyone in Washington that aerospace matters. Kansas needs a senator who treats Spirit, Boeing, McConnell, and Fort Riley as specific places with specific people — not as abstractions in a national-defense talking point.