Rickey Stokes interviewing Josh Motley Subject: Flight School Next, and FRAM II
RICKEY STOKES: Josh, how long have you known Rhett Marques, and how did you get to know him? JOSH MOTLEY: I’ve known Rhett for more than 25 years. I grew up in the Battens Crossroads community, just outside Enterprise, and I’ve known him since long before he ever got involved in politics. He owned and operated a tire store in Enterprise for years, so I knew him as a local businessman long before he was elected to the Enterprise City Council or the Alabama Legislature.
RICKEY STOKES: Tell us a little about your background and your involvement at Fort Rucker. JOSH MOTLEY: I worked on the Fort Rucker Aviation Maintenance Contract for 15 years. During that time, I worked in several different classifications, most recently as an aircraft mechanic.
RICKEY STOKES: I’ve heard you were pretty involved with the union out there. What did you do? JOSH MOTLEY: I’ve held several positions within the union over the years. I was a shop steward for a long time, and in 2022, I became a Grievance Negotiating Committeeman, or GNC, at Shell Field. That’s basically what most places would call a chief steward. Then, in January of 2026, I became a Business Representative. Over the years, I’ve handled everything from individual employee grievances and contract negotiations to major federal contracting issues that could affect thousands of employees and their families.
RICKEY STOKES: How did your work bring you into contact with Rhett in his role as an elected official? JOSH MOTLEY: Well, since 2022, we’ve dealt with several issues involving the future of aviation training and maintenance at Fort Rucker. Some of those issues had the potential to seriously affect employees’ wages and benefits. When those situations came up, I reached out to elected officials who could help us get our concerns in front of the right people. Rhett was one of those officials. And I’ll tell you something about Rhett. In all the times I’ve called him, I can’t remember a single time when he didn’t either answer the phone or call me back shortly afterward. That might not sound like a big deal, but when you’re dealing with something that could cost people their livelihoods, being able to pick up the phone and actually reach someone matters.
RICKEY STOKES: What were some of the issues facing Fort Rucker employees? JOSH MOTLEY: The two biggest issues were probably Flight School Next and Fort Rucker Aviation Maintenance II, or FRAM II as the Army calls it. Both involved the future of major aviation contracts at Fort Rucker, and both raised some serious concerns about what was going to happen to the employees currently working there. And these weren’t small concerns. Depending on how those contracts were handled, employees could have faced losing nearly half their wages and roughly two-thirds of their fringe benefits. So we were talking about some pretty serious consequences for a lot of working families.
RICKEY STOKES: Explain Flight School Next. What was the concern? JOSH MOTLEY: Flight School Next was the Army’s initiative to modernize its aviation flight training program. The big concern for us was whether the Army was going to treat the new contract as a successor contract under the federal Service Contract Act. That’s important because the Service Contract Act has provisions that protect certain wages and benefits when a federal service contract changes hands. If those protections weren’t applied, we were concerned that employees could face some pretty substantial cuts. And you’ve got to remember, we’re talking about people who’ve built their lives around these jobs. They’ve got mortgages, car payments, kids to raise, and retirement plans. Some of these folks have been working at Fort Rucker for decades. And when you look at how much money those employees put back into the local economy, the consequences wouldn’t have stopped at Fort Rucker. They would’ve been felt throughout the Wiregrass.
RICKEY STOKES: What involvement did Rhett have in that situation? JOSH MOTLEY: I worked with Rhett and Congressman Barry Moore on the successorcontract issue. We explained what was happening, what our concerns were, and what the potential consequences could be for the employees. Rhett was accessible, he listened, and he stayed involved as we worked through the issue. Now, I can’t tell you everything that went on behind the scenes with the Army, and I wouldn’t pretend to know every factor that went into its decisions. But I can tell you about my own conversations with Rhett and the assistance he provided while we were dealing with it.
RICKEY STOKES: Once Flight School Next was addressed, was that the end of the contracting concerns? JOSH MOTLEY: Not even close. We had barely gotten through Flight School Next when we found ourselves dealing with another major issue involving FRAM II. Now, most people outside Fort Rucker have probably never heard of FRAM II. The current aviation maintenance contract is called FRAM I. The follow-on contract, which is scheduled to begin in January 2028, is called FRAM II. This is the contract that provides the aircraft maintenance and logistics support needed to keep the Army and Air Force flight training missions operating. And it supports a substantial number of good-paying jobs right here in the Wiregrass.
RICKEY STOKES: What happened when the FRAM II contract was released for bidding? JOSH MOTLEY: Well, when the Army released the solicitation, our collective bargaining agreement wasn’t attached to it. Instead, contractors were being directed to base their labor bids on the federal area wage determination. Now, that was a major concern because those wage determination rates were substantially lower than the wages and benefits our members had negotiated through collective bargaining. So here we were, having just spent months dealing with Flight School Next, and now we were looking at essentially the same problem all over again. We were concerned that our members could potentially lose nearly half their wages and about two-thirds of their fringe benefits. And in my view, the solicitation wasn’t properly accounting for the successor-contract wage protections under the Service Contract Act.
RICKEY STOKES: What did you do when you discovered the problem? JOSH MOTLEY: I immediately contacted Rhett and Congressman Barry Moore. The deadline for contractors to submit their bids was July 14, 2026, and it was coming up fast. We were trying to get the issue corrected before that deadline. But July 14 came and went, and the correction we were asking for hadn’t been made. But we didn’t stop working on it. We kept communicating our concerns and pushing to get the collective bargaining agreement properly included in the solicitation.
RICKEY STOKES: How did the FRAM II situation eventually turn out? JOSH MOTLEY: Well, on October 13, 2026, the Army reopened the solicitation for revised proposals. And the next day the amended solicitation was published with our collective bargaining agreement attached. That was a very important development because it addressed the issue we’d been raising about protecting the employees’ negotiated wages and benefits. Now, to somebody who doesn’t deal with government contracting, that might not sound like a whole lot. We’re talking about attaching a document to a contract solicitation. But that document represents the wages and benefits these employees have spent decades working to earn and maintain. So for the people whose livelihoods depend on those jobs, it was a pretty significant development.
RICKEY STOKES: What can you say about Rhett’s involvement throughout the FRAM II process? JOSH MOTLEY: Well, from my experience, Rhett stayed accessible and engaged while we were trying to get the issue addressed. And I think it’s important to point out that we didn’t get the correction we wanted before the original bid deadline. July 14 came and went, and we still had a problem. But we kept working on it, and Rhett continued to be someone I could call and talk to about what was happening. Ultimately, the Army amended the solicitation and included the collective bargaining agreement. Now, I can’t tell you about every conversation that took place within the government, but I can tell you what I personally experienced and the assistance I received along the way.
RICKEY STOKES: Why are these contracting issues so important to the Wiregrass? JOSH MOTLEY: Because Fort Rucker isn’t just a military installation. It’s one of the economic foundations of southeastern Alabama. The people working on these contracts live all over the Wiregrass. They buy homes here, shop at local businesses, eat in our restaurants, and raise their families in our communities. And when you start talking about cutting the wages and benefits of large numbers of those employees, that doesn’t just affect the people working at Fort Rucker. It affects the entire local economy. Think about what would happen if all those families suddenly had half as much money coming into their households. The consequences could be devastating, not just for those families, but for businesses and communities throughout this region. That’s why these contracting issues are so important.
RICKEY STOKES: Looking back at these experiences, what has stood out to you about communicating with elected officials? JOSH MOTLEY: I think one of the biggest things I’ve learned is just how important accessibility is. Look, I don’t expect every elected official to agree with me on every issue. That’s not realistic. When we’ve got a problem, I need to be able to explain what’s happening, get somebody to listen, and keep the lines of communication open while we work toward a solution. In the situations I’ve talked about, Rhett answered or returned my calls, listened to what I had to say, and stayed engaged. And that’s something I can tell you from my own personal experience.
RICKEY STOKES: Are you speaking on behalf of the union in this interview? JOSH MOTLEY: I’m speaking strictly about my own personal experiences and the interactions I’ve had with Rhett Marques and Barry Moore.
