This is an opinion column

Welcome to what I hope becomes a helpful – or at least stimulating – regular discussion of what works and what doesn’t in our shared Huntsville metro, a discussion led by yours truly, a lifelong resident of and career-long reporter on ever-growing Huntsville.

We’ll talk about successes and challenges and those times we would have preferred a do-over, to be honest. One of our natural focuses will be the companies, researchers and governments working on national science and technology efforts from flying back to the moon to winning on the battlefield to decoding the possibilities in the DNA molecule. We won’t forget the military projects always under way at Redstone Arsenal, learning what security allows and pointing out the times America says to Redstone it needs this leader, this team and this capability.

That happened when America needed Redstone Gen. Gustav Perna to successfully lead the drive for a COVID vaccine and it happened when America needed Redstone’s skills to move equipment to Ukraine while that country fights to exist.

Closer to home, we’ll get into the challenges and successes of operating in a metro area that crosses city and county lines in north Alabama and a state border into Tennessee. We’ll ask the same questions to the multiple local governments wrangling this region’s growth.