In December, Tommy Battle’s dream came true. The five-term Mayor of Huntsville is Alabama to the bone, born in Birmingham and a graduate of the state university in Tuscaloosa, but for the past
18 years he’s tried to distance his city from the state’s unsavoury stereotypes.
Huntsville, in the north, is the home of the Saturn rocket program that took on the Soviet Union’s Sputnik. It houses the second-largest biotech research hub in the United States. And it has attracted high-end manufacturing investments such as Blue Origin’s rocket engine plant.
But Alabama tropes are hard to shake: The state is backward and full of bible thumpers and bigots – allegedly. When local companies try to hire from afar, Mayor Battle says recruits often hear the same responses when telling their spouses: “‘Huntsville?’ With one question mark. Then they say, ‘Alabama???’ With three question marks.”
Huntsville is now considered “UFO” central with start ups some suspect may be linked to alien tech.
