Local aerospace plant celebrates 40 years

By: Toni Pirkl, The Jamestown Sun
The aerospace manufacturing business in Jamestown began in 1970 with a few employees assembling airplane doors, eventually hitting 600 employees and No. 1 in market share in the cargo systems business.

The company name has changed nine times in the aerospace plant’s lifetime. Now it’s part of Goodrich Corp. and is celebrating its 40th anniversary.

“Goodrich is here to stay,” said Jack Clay, the vice president of Goodrich Cargo Systems in Jamestown. “This is a great plant with people who are extremely hardworking, creative, quality focused, full of integrity and customer friendly. They will go to extraordinary lengths to make things happen and will do it with a smile.”

According to retired employee Art Todd, that description has been true of the employees for 40 years, regardless of the company’s name at the time. The facility began as a simple assembly plant and grew to a high-tech operation.

“Initially, the concept was to develop a satellite manufacturing plant, making parts and components,” Todd said. “Eventually we were able to produce high-quality products. The primary reason for success was the people who work there. They turned the plant into a world-class, competitive operation.”

Todd was an employee of Western Gear Corp. in Everett, Wash., and was sent to Jamestown on a temporary assignment to open a plant here in late 1970. For most area residents, Western Gear was thought to have something to do with cowboy gear. Instead, the company was involved in aerospace manufacturing.

“It was quite an experience getting it started with a dirt floor in the plant and no equipment,” Todd said. “We literally started from scratch.”

The temporary assignment turned into nearly 35 years at the Jamestown facility. Todd retired in 2005.

“During my career here, I have counted at least nine different companies I’ve worked for without ever having to leave my chair,” he said. “But no matter what the company name was, what you’re doing remained the same. Essentially, you’re doing the same thing with the same product.”

When it came to hiring for the new plant, Todd looked for people with high mechanical aptitude. The training was all on the job, he said. Luckily there were a few very skilled people to do the training, he said, because even the A-6 bomber doors required a higher level of technology than originally expected.

Then came the real test, building weapons rails for the F-14 Tomcat, which the Jamestown facility took over in 1972. From there the manufacturing programs in the plant included various cargo systems, missile launchers and bomb racks as well as other aircraft structural programs.

“My 35 years here was a great ride,” Todd said. “At the time you don’t realize the significance and long-term impact something like this has on a community.”

Jim Boyd, who retired in 2006, spent 31 years working at the Jamestown facility. He was working at Boeing Corp., Seattle, in 1975 when Western Gear was looking for a design engineer here.

“Up until then they worked with someone else’s drawings,” Boyd said. “Once we had design engineers, we began looking for projects to design and build.”

By the late 1970s, Western Gear in Jamestown had moved into more design and development projects, mostly for the military. By the 1980s the military side of the business was up to 80 percent, with commercial work sliding to 20 percent. The facility was designing weapon delivery systems and bomb racks.

“We went from zero to probably 100 design and development engineers,” Boyd said.

During the 1980s, Western Gear was acquired by Bucyrus Erie Corp. and the Jamestown facility was renamed Becor Western in 1982. Then in 1987 Becor Western was acquired by Lucas Industries, a United Kingdom company, and the facility here became Lucas Western as part of the Lucas Aerospace component.

Boyd said local company officials decided to de-emphasize the military side of the business in 1987 and focus more on the commercial side.

“It was a good thing we did because peace broke out all over the world starting in 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down,” he said.

During those years, Lucas Western designed and built cargo-handling systems mostly for Boeing. To diversify, Boyd said, they worked for and landed a contract with Airbus, a European aerospace company. Then in 1996 Lucas merged with Varity Corp. and the facility became Lucas-Varity.

“By then we had become No. 1 in market share and the military side of the business was down to less than 10 percent,” he said.

Business was humming along when TRW acquired Lucas Varity in 1999.

“It wasn’t a happy time for us,” Boyd said of that period.

In 2002, after a short time as part of the Northrop Grumman Corp. when it acquired TRW, the facility became part of Goodrich.

As Goodrich Jamestown, the facility still concentrates on cargo-handling systems, which have gotten very sophisticated. Airbus and Boeing are still the major clients.

“But we have a lot of secondary customers in aftermarket replacement of hardware and equipment,” Clay said.

And diversification has gone full-circle in 2010. In addition to a more diversified customer base, Clay said, the company is looking to get back into the military side of the aerospace business.

“The current recession is a reminder that we need to focus on continuous improvement for business profitability and increase our base of customers and products to lessen the downturn risk to our business and people.”

Sun reporter Toni Pirkl can be reached at (701) 952-8453

or by e-mail at tonip@jamestownsun.com