Deal was among an array of aviation industry and government executives who spoke at the Ohio Aerospace Jobs Summit and Technology Showcase. U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and the Ohio Aerospace and Aviation Council organized the one-day event hosted by GE Aviation, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of military and commercial jet engines. Officials from the Air Force Research Laboratory, NASA and the Dayton Development Coalition were among the audience.
Boeing, with about 600 employees in the state, spends $4.8 billion annually on Ohio procurement, Deal said. Airbus was already spending $4.3 billion annually in the state by 2009.
But aerospace industry officials don’t necessarily measure that category on a dollar-for-dollar basis. Among the 50 states, Ohio is the No. 1 aerospace supplier as a state to Airbus and No. 2 to Boeing, according to the Ohio Aerospace and Aviation Council.
“Airbus No. 1, Boeing No. 2, I’d like to flip that. I really find it kind of irritating,” Deal said, prompting laughter from his audience of Ohio aerospace executives.
Ohio hopes to build its expertise in unmanned aircraft and sensor systems in the Dayton-Springfield-Wilmington region where there are already manufacturing and research capabilities or plans to seek federal approval for designated airspace to test-fly the unmanned planes, said Mark Kvamme, president of JobsOhio, the state’s privatized job-creation entity.
“We want to make that the unmanned systems corridor,” Kvamme said.
The unmanned aircraft, already popular with the U.S. military, could eventually serve a much larger commercial market including agriculture, law enforcement, border patrol, firefighting and search and rescue operations, according to industry officials.
GE Aviation, Ohio’s largest exporter, has increased its employment within the state by seven percent during the past two years, to a payroll of $750 million including about 9,000 employees at six sites, said David Joyce, GE Aviation’s president and chief executive officer. That includes electric power system manufacturing operations with two plants and about 1,400 employees in the Dayton area. GE’s business with Ohio suppliers totals $1.2 billion annually.
GE Aviation is working with Dayton partners to build a $51 million research and development center to develop next-generation electric power systems for aircraft that can satisfy demand for more power and greater efficiency, Joyce said. Although the mild winter that just ended allowed construction workers to get well under way with the project on University of Dayton property near the Great Miami River, GE Aviation still does not anticipate starting operation of the center until early 2013, Joyce said.
Officials have said previously that the center’s R&D focus would also include new electric power systems for ships and cars. But the focus, at least initially, will be on systems for aircraft as the demand increases for electricity distribution capacity, particularly in commercial aircraft, Joyce said.
“Aircraft is what we know and love,” Joyce said.
Ohio’s aerospace industry, with employment of about 100,000 people, is second only to agriculture as a statewide employer, Portman said.
Ohio’s long-term ability to improve its aerospace employment will depend on how well its colleges and universities do in training new generations of aerospace employees from engineers to maintenance technicians, and in how well universities and federal research laboratories in the state collaborate with industry in product innovation, Portman said. The Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and NASA’s Glenn Research Center near Cleveland are keys to that effort, along with the state’s universities, Portman said.
Joyce agreed that cooperation with federal and academic researchers is critical.
“New aerospace jobs and investments will be based on the efficiencies created by close collaboration with Ohio’s public entities,” Joyce said.
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