Boeing Takes Space in OC to Support C-17
By CHRIS CZIBORR
Chicago-based Boeing Co. said it is setting up a quick-response facility in Huntington Beach to produce spare parts for the company’s C-17 Globemaster III transport plane.
Boeing has seen an increase in demand from the U.S. military for the planes in recent years, which has been further spurred by the Afghanistan conflict.
St. Louis, Mo.-based Boeing Military and Aircraft Missile Systems has leased a 62,700-square-foot building from Irvine-based Sares-Regis Group for $2.5 million. Boeing will open the 15400 Graham St. facility around May and will engage in tube bending and welding as well as sheet metal and machining.
“We’re giving ourselves an extra space so that when the C-17 production line needs a quick part we can fabricate it on the fly and get it to them to keep the production line going,rather than having to go back to suppliers,” said Boeing spokesman George Sillia.
Boeing is taking equipment and staff from a now-defunct section of Seal Beach-based Boeing Space and Communications. The Seal Beach unit of Boeing left a building in Huntington Beach that has been shuttered and the unit now is on Military and Aircraft Missile Systems’ books.
The new facility will eventually have 160 employees, taking many of the 250 current employees from the previous facility and adding an undisclosed number.
“We’re planning to hire some people back,” Sillia said. “With the old facility, a lot of people will get transferred to other divisions of Boeing and there may be some layoffs.”
Boeing Co. officials last month said they were optimistic about working out a deal with the military to supply additional C-17 transport planes, if the Pentagon decides to increase its order.
The Defense Department has agreed to buy 120 C-17s and is expected to order 60 more in a contract worth as much as $10 billion.
But Air Force Gen. John Handy, commander of the U.S. Transportation Command, last month said the military needs yet another 42 of the planes to meet its combat and humanitarian mission requirements.
The aircraft, which carries troops and cargo, has been used in Afghanistan.
The contract for 60 more planes would keep Boeing’s production line in Long Beach operating through 2008. An order for 42 planes beyond that would keep the production line operating through 2010 or 2011, according to a Boeing official.
Boeing intends to continue production at a rate of 15 planes a year, the official said.
Under the fiscal 2003 budget, the Air Force plans a multiyear buy of 60 extra C-17s to cover both long-range and current needs, budgeting $3.8 billion to procure 12 planes in the fiscal year starting Oct. 1.
