Company trains new workers to prepare for possible $4M contract

Vector Composites

Founded: 2007

Owner: DR Technologies, San Diego, Calif.

Home: 3251 McCall St., Dayton.

Products: composite material aerospace and defense components.

Employees: Three.

Source: Vector Composites.

DAYTON — Paul Kiefer spent 22 years working for Delphi before getting laid off in 2007.

So perhaps there’s a certain justice that Kiefer is training for his next career — as a composite materials technician — at the Dayton Campus for Advanced Materials Technologies, a former Delphi building on McCall Street.

Kiefer and about a dozen other students could be found at the campus last week, in the research and development space of Vector Composites Inc., wrapping up the final day of the training’s first phase. The National Composite Center (NCC), Sinclair Community College and the Montgomery County Job Center all had a role in selecting displaced workers for the training.

Tim Brocklehurst’s role may be the pay-off, though. Brocklehurst, vice president and general manager of Vector Composites, not only opened his doors to the students, he pledged to hire at least two when they graduate.

That’s a good deal for Vector, which today has three employees and hopes to shortly get word of a $4 million Air Force Research Lab contract award, Brocklehurst said. When the award is final, the firm will need more workers.

“I’m not fully staffed in terms of human resources,” Brocklehurst said. “So here we go.”

Of course, it’s a good deal for Kiefer, too, who used to work at what was the Delphi technical center on Cincinnati Street.

“It’s great,” Kiefer said. “I’ve been unemployed for three years. It’s just the way it goes.”

Brocklehurst, a 10-year veteran of General Electric Aviation, feels the future of composites is bright. Though the initial cost is high — ten pounds can cost $58,000, depending on the material — composite advantages include light weight and durability. Alan Fatz, composite technologies commercialization director for the NCC, believes that by the end of the century, composites will be more prevalent than concrete or steel.

Vector focuses squarely on the aerospace defense market, with customers such as Robinson Helicopter, of Torrance, Calif., the University of Dayton Research Institute, the Air Force and the Navy. Its material suppliers include local ones, like NanoSperse and Renegade Materials. Vector takes their material, cuts and cures it and produces the parts customers want.

Said Brocklehurst, “We’re trying to give composites some street value.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2390 or tgnau@DaytonDailyNews.com.