Municipal planners in U.S. cities threatened with military base closings might want to pack their bags and spend a few days in Bangor this summer. They’ll learn what residents here have known for 30 years: that transforming a major government facility into a lucrative civilian airport doesn’t have to be a turbulent experience.

Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara stunned the community — even career military personnel blanched — when he targeted Dow Air Force Base for closure. By July 1, 1968, when the city took control of the property, the air base’s 4,400 personnel and 7,400 family members were headed to other parts of the globe, taking with them an annual $23 million in payroll, school support, operations and maintenace and other economic pluses.

But, as Roxanne Moore Saucier outlined in Wednesday’s BDN feature on the textbook transition, city planners such as City Managers Joe Coupal and Merle Goff, Mayor John Conti, and later airport directors Peter D’Errico and Bob Ziegelaar realized the airport’s potential and the importance of a friendly working relationship with the Maine Air National Guard base that exists to this day.

Driving personalities on the civilian and military side of the board, coupled with two-mile long runways, an ideal location near the geographical center of Maine and a warm, stress-free environment helped turn a potentially disastrous situation into the booming center known now as Bangor International Airport.

The former hayfield once owned by Bangor visionary Edward Godfrey, where fliers Amelia Earhart, Billy Mitchell and Jimmy Stewart, to name but a few, once landed, is now a jewel in the city’s crown, boasting 14,000 civilian flights a year and reserves of $12 million and a total annual impact of $200 million a year in the region. And the prospects for the new century are even rosier.

BIA is flying high, proving rumors of the civilian airport’s demise in 1968 were greatly exaggerated.