Studer Community Institute

Why top aerospace companies chose the Gulf Coast

June 15, 2015
/ David Tortorano
/ economy

When Northrop Grumman decided in 2005 to establish a production facility for its cutting edge Fire Scout unmanned helicopters in the small Mississippi town of Moss Point, it raised eyebrows. Why would the company go to a location with no track record building aircraft of any type, let alone a high-tech unmanned system? The company knew it was taking a chance, but it knew the reputation of the workers at a shipyard in nearby Pascagoula that at that time was owned by Northrop Grumman. What happened made Northrop Grumman look very smart. Not only did the workers manage to do the work on Fire Scout, but on Global Hawk as well. And they did so in a shorter learning curve than expected. As one official put it, they knocked their socks off. And a reputation was born. Northrop Grumman is just one of the top aerospace and defense companies that have chosen to set up operations in the Gulf Coast region. And for an area of the country that has made aviation a target industry, it’s significant. They range from large plants like the new $600 million Airbus final assembly line in Mobile, Ala., to smaller operations that fall under the radar. The reasons they chose to set up operations in the Gulf Coast region varies from company to company. The lower cost of doing business, infrastructure, logistics and available workforce are all factors, as is the right-to-work status in all four of the states. But there are business reasons that go beyond that. As a group, the presence of these companies help form the foundation for the region’s aerospace and defense cluster, one of the most research-intensive, high-tech sectors in the world. Importantly, these companies create jobs ranging from production workers to highly sought engineers and scientists. The most high-profile operations are the space-related activities of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, and the commercial aircraft activities of Airbus. At Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, Boeing is building the 200-foot tall core stage for NASA’s Space Launch System and Lockheed Martin is building the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle. In Mississippi at Stennis Space Center, Lockheed Martin makes the core satellite propulsion subsystems and multi-layer insulation blankets and integrate them into the A2100 satellites used by satellites that go by other names. The other high-profile work is the commercial aerospace activities of Airbus in Mobile, Ala., where an A320 assembly line will open in the summer of 2015. It opted to open the site to help address a huge backlog of the popular aircraft. Also involved in commercial aviation work in the region are Rolls-Royce, which tests jet engines at Stennis Space Center, GE Aviation, which makes jet engine parts just outside the I-10 region, and Safran. A lot of the top 10 companies are involved in defense activities, primarily but not exclusively in Northwest Florida. Companies like Raytheon and DRS go about their work under the radar. Condensed from Chapter 2, Gulf Coast Aerospace Corridor 2015-2016. To see the complete chapter, click here Chapter II Gulf_Coast_Aerospace_Corridor.com is a website created in 2008 to highlight aerospace activities along the Interstate 10 corridor between New Orleans and Northwest Florida. It includes reference material, job postings, a daily aerospace newsfeed and weekly column. In 2011, the website teamed with several journalists to create the Gulf Coast Reporters’ League, which writes and publishes an annual book about aerospace in the region. The first book was published in June 2011. In September 2013, the League launched an eight-page quarterly aerospace newsletter, which became a bimonthly in August 2014 after the League published the fourth edition of the annual. All the books can be found at: www.gulfcoastaerospacecorridor.com/gcacbooksall.html and all the newsletters can be found at www.gulfcoastaerospacecorridor.com/gcacnewslettersall.html

Back to Blogs

Why top aerospace companies chose the Gulf Coast

Recent Posts