Joby’s aim is to create a new market with a new kind of aircraft, flying passengers over big cities to airports in fast, quiet electric aircraft that take off and land like helicopters but cruise like conventional airplanes.
While Joby has established a pilot manufacturing presence in California near its headquarters, its plans for Dayton are to push that production to scale, building parts and — if and when government certification and market conditions permit— composite-material electric aircraft in higher numbers.
While leaders of Joby have continued to work with Dayton government and development leaders since the company’s 2023 announcement, Friday’s chamber gathering was one of Joby’s few public or near-public forays in the area since that announcement, with the exception of appearances by Joby officers at National Advanced Air Mobility Industry forums in Springfield.
Ubelhart, whose job title is general manager of Joby Manufacturing Ohio or “JMO,” told listeners that he and Joby’s first Dayton employees have been training in California for most of this summer. Some of the first products to be made in Dayton are making their way from California to Ohio, he said.
“The facility here is starting off with small, higher-volume components,” he said. “The first product line is what we’re building towards now internally.”
He added: “I’d love to say we can put it on a truck and come here and start building. It’s not so easy, as I’m also finding.”
Sleeper linked the company’s presence in Dayton to eventual Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certification of Joby’s aircraft. Joby still plans “up to 2,000 jobs” in Dayton, he said.
“The way we think about manufacturing and timing and turning on the manufacturing facility — you can’t open and build a manufacturing facility too soon before cert (FAA certification) because you’re spending a lot of money before you can make those aircraft commercially viable,“ Sleeper said. ”You also can’t wait too long, because if you wait too long, you’re losing a lot of market opportunity.”
Joby’s facility in California will have the capacity to build “tens” of Joby’s aircraft, Sleeper said. The facility in Dayton will be able to build “hundreds.”
“The training is top-notch,” Ubelhart said. “The people I have on staff right now are the best you’ll ever meet. I would put them against anybody.”
Ubelhart said he is pursuing relationships with Dayton-area schools where prospective talented employees can be found.
“I’ve literally been back in Ohio probably for three or four weeks at this point, trying to build this relationship,” he said.
“Know that you have partners, you have friends, you have allies,” Chris Kershner, the chamber’s president and chief executive, told Ubelhart and Sleeper to applause. “As you grow this company, we will grow with you.”
A graduate from Lemon Monroe High School in Butler County, Ubelhart is a veteran of Reuther Mold and Manufacturing Co. in Cuyahoga Falls, where he was vice president of engineering. He also worked at NobelTek in Wooster and other Northeastern Ohio companies, where his resume his heavy in engineering and computer numeric control (CNC) roles.
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