The Nashville International Airport ranked as the nation’s 34th busiest in 2011, rising five spots from its 2010 position, according to statistics the Metro Nashville Airport Authority released Tuesday.

The Airport Council International-North America Traffic Report 2011 shows BNA had 9.6 million passengers last year, surpassing the passenger counts at airports in Cleveland, Memphis, Milwaukee, Oakland and Raleigh. BNA saw 6.2 percent growth from 2010 to 2011, enjoying the fourth-highest growth rate among the top 75 airports in North America.

May flight operations statistics reveal total aircraft operations at BNA rose 1.3 percent. Also that month, the airport averaged 378 daily flights, up eight flights per day compared to May 2011 numbers. In addition, BNA saw fuel sales (per gallon) drop 7.5 percent from May 2010 to May 2011. They have decreased 6.1 percent year to date.

Nicole M. Langlois has been named associate director of campaign growth and analytics at United Way of Metropolitan Nashville.

Langlois will manage a portfolio of campaigns as well as engage campaign analytics to assess opportunities for new and improved strategies. She also will be responsible for researching potential increases from donors and company funding from grants and foundations.

A Pittsburgh native, Langlois has been with United Way since 2001, starting in Cleveland. She has a bachelor’s degree in communications from Kent State University and a master’s in non-profit administration from John Carroll University.

A quick scan of the HVS Convention, Sports & Entertainment Facilities Consulting study —conducted to determine the economic impact of the proposed National Museum of African American Music — reveals some interesting information.

HVS, based in Chicago, determined the museum projects to annually produce $9.1 million in new revenue, 133,000 visitors per year and about 117 permanent jobs, information Nashville Post reported previously.

Of note, the study compares the planned NMAAM with existing museums of all genres, including six in Nashville, and with eight of the nation’s major African-American-themed museums. But it is the study comparing NMAAM to 10 music-themed museums that is most interesting. These include the following (with approximate annual attendance listed in parentheses; revenues per facility are not listed as ticket prices vary):

• the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Nashville (420,000 visitors)
• the American Jazz Museum, Kansas City (300,000)
• the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland (477,000)
• the Rock n Soul Museum, Memphis (50,000)
• the Experience Music Project, Seattle (511,000)
• the Musical Instrument Museum, Phoenix (200,000)
• the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, Memphis (42,500)
• the Grammy Museum, Los Angeles (64,900)
• the B.B. King Museum and the Delta Interpretive Center, Indianola, Miss. (25,000)
• the International Bluegrass Music Museum, Owensboro, Ky. (24,500)

The 10 aforementioned civic attractions average about 212,000 visitors per year. So the projected 133,000 visitors the NMAAM is expected to draw would seem reasonable.

Other key study findings include the following:

• The size of the proposed NMAAM would be well below the average size of the 10 comparable facilities.

• NMAAM is expected to charge an adult admission ticket price below those of industry-leading music museums.

• Most of the comparable African American-themed museums are located in densely populated areas. On average, eight million residents live within two hours of these comparable venues, as compared to approximately 3.4 million living within a two-hour drive of downtown Nashville. However, with the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles removed from the calculation, the average population within a two-hour drive time to the comparable music-themed museums is approximately 3.2 million.

• Many visitors to the $47.5 million NMAAM will include tourists, both national and foreign. The study notes that in recent years, foreign tourists have increasingly attended music-themed museums, particularly those in the southeastern United States.

• Music-themed museums offer a significantly greater number of weekly hours of operation than those with a focus on African American culture and history (which the NMAAM was to have been in its original iteration). 

HVS conducted a similar study, submitted in January 2010, regarding the then-planned Music City Center convention facility.

U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Scalia’s view on the proper place law should occupy in one’s life might surprise some — this from an American Lawyer magazine blog post linked here.

During a speech earlier this month at the University of Chicago Law School’s Federal Society meeting, Scalia — the personable justice who is seemingly always smiling — gave some unexpected advice to those gathered after he had delivered his views on the Second Amendment. Here’s what he said, comments that surprised many:

“Try to find a practice that enables you to maintain a human existence ... time for your family, your church or synagogue, community ... Boy Scouts, little league,” Scalia said.

And after noting the beginnings of his own law career with the Jones Day firm in Cleveland, Scalia continued.

“You should look for a place like that (Jones Day). I’m sure they’re still out there. Maybe you have to go to Cleveland,” he said.

Cleveland jokes aside, Scalia isn’t kidding. The entire legal industry frequently wrestles with this work/life balance issue, including its relevance to the dwindling number of female partners now practicing. We've written before about the female partner issue and its pertinence to law firm economics and the future of law.

Scalia’s view gives credence to those who are thinking of redefining the meaning of “successful lawyer.” Even in larger firms, partner tracks are under scrutiny and in some cases undergoing significant reworking. Scalia didn’t allude to the female partner dilemma, but it’s interesting that a Supreme Court Justice who rose to that position by way of a life-consuming passion for the law espouses this less-than-traditional view.

In April, Modern Healthcare's Vince Galloro wrote about the dueling medical mart projects in Cleveland and Nashville. We missed it until the Nashville Medical Trade Center folks tweeted about it yesterday, pointing out one quoted opinion that Nashville's project will be more successful than Cleveland's.

Perhaps more interesting, however, is the argument by Cleveland Medical Mart and Convention Center developer MMPI that the Ohio city is the medical capital of the country — not Nashville. And, well, there are some statistics that may surprise you:

Johnson argues that Cleveland, rather than Nashville, is “the nation's medical capital.” Johnson cites the locally based but globally influential Cleveland Clinic Foundation as a major advantage, bolstered by three other local hospital providers, MetroHealth Medical Center, Sisters of Charity Health System and University Hospitals; all four are partners in the project and will be tenants, Johnson says. Steris Corp., a maker of infection-control products based in Mentor, Ohio, will have a permanent showroom at the mart, Johnson says.

Cleveland's healthcare industry employs 480,000 people in some form or another and has $35 billion in economic impact, Johnson adds. Nashville has its own figures for healthcare employment and economic impact—210,000 local jobs and $30 billion in economic impact, according to a study released in July by the Nashville Health Care Council.

In its weekly update of the progress of Nashville Medical Trade Center competitor — the Cleveland Medical Mart & Convention Center — The Plain Dealer discusses the construction site activity, where more than 200 construction workers and “40 large machines” are toiling toward a 2013 opening. Nashville’s $250 million med mart is scheduled to open the same year.