Boeing SOF has been a fixture in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., for 20 years. Its multi-story building at the City of Fort Walton Beach Commerce and Technology Park, which focuses on aircraft used by Air Force Special Operations, has now been joined by a new operation at an 83,000- square-foot building on Hill Drive. The Boeing Aircraft Modernization and Sustainment Facility also will focus on keeping aircraft up-to-date, but in addition will repair and construct wiring for the big aircraft, repair hydraulic landing gear. It also will have a Technical Capabilities center that will develop manuals for Boeing and non-Boeing systems.

The Boeing name resonates in the world of business. The largest aerospace company is a huge player in the commercial aircraft, defense and space industries, and its presence in a community is a magnet that says a lot about the tech-savvy nature of an area.

For 20 years now, Boeing has been a part of the Panhandle’s Fort Walton Beach. It’s one of four locations in the state that Boeing considers a hub for its Florida workforce of 1,400.

And its footprint here is growing.

In addition to the Boeing SOF building at Fort Walton Beach Commerce and Technology Park, the company recently opened the nearby 83,000-square-foot Boeing Aircraft Modernization and Sustainment Facility.

“Boeing  is a name that is synonymous with excellence, and with Boeing choosing to expand its Fort Walton Beach footprint, it certainly speaks volumes about our community’s ability to accommodate a company of this caliber,” said Nathan Sparks, the executive director of the Okaloosa County Economic Development Council.

“The addition of more highly skilled, high-wage jobs to our local economy is the direct benefit, and one that we greatly appreciate, but the vote of confidence from a company viewed by many as the gold standard of the global aerospace sector is especially noteworthy,” Sparks said.

Boeing came to Fort Walton Beach two decades ago, drawn to the area by Eglin Air Force Base, a huge base where conventional airborne weapons are developed and tested, and Hurlburt Field, home of the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command.

The Crestview-Fort Walton Beach-Destin metro area has a high concentration of scientists and technicians involved in defense-oriented research, development, test and evaluation. Indeed, its concentration of avionics technicians alone is nine times the national norm.1 It has a healthy supply of Air Force and Navy retirees to offer as potential employees.

The Boeing Special Operations Forces organization has been here since the mid-90s and is a major anchor of the tech park. The skilled workers there focus on the multiple, specialized aircraft used by the highly active Special Operations forces.

Over the years the Boeing unit has secured millions in government contracts to do work at Eglin, Hurlburt Field and other locations. It’s this work with Special Forces that inspired Boeing recently to expand operations in Fort Walton Beach a second building.

Boeing announced on July 1 that it had purchased the Edwin Watts Golf warehouse at 20 Hill Drive and turned it into an aircraft modernization and sustainment facility.

Boeing SOF has been a fixture in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., for 20 years. Its multi-story building at the City of Fort Walton Beach Commerce and Technology Park, which focuses on aircraft used by Air Force Special Operations, has now been joined by a new operation at an 83,000- square-foot building on Hill Drive. The Boeing Aircraft Modernization and Sustainment Facility also will focus on keeping aircraft up-to-date, but in addition will repair and construct wiring for the big aircraft, repair hydraulic landing gear. It also will have a Technical Capabilities center that will develop manuals for Boeing and non-Boeing systems.

The primary mission at the new building, like the older location, is keeping the aircraft flying out of Hurlburt, the AC-130U and the CV-22 Osprey, functioning at peak capacity, according to Hank Sanders, Boeing’s director of Special Operations Forces Programs.

The big sustainment job at the new location is repairing and constructing wiring that runs through aircraft, Sanders said. But with the additional room available at the new facility, Boeing has plans to do other things.

Sanders said that hydraulic repairs on the weapons (guns) that are employed by the AC-130 gunships, as well as the landing gears for the F-15 fighter, will be undertaken at the new facility.

He said the Hill Drive location will house a Technical Capability Center at which technical manuals will be developed for Boeing and non-Boeing systems. Boeing puts together technical manuals for nine aircraft, including the C-130, F-15, QF-16, Italy’s KC-767, and the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD).

While Sanders said the work Boeing does is funded primarily by existing government contracts, the company is “constantly planning for growth.” The building on Hill Drive will employ engineers and technicians and house laboratories and an expanded repair center, but there should be blue collar job opportunities as well. The former home of Edwin Watts will afford Boeing critical warehouse space.

Sanders said parts for F-15s and AC-130s flown by the U.S. and its allies across the globe will be stored in Fort Walton Beach.

“We will provide warehouse space for all activities Boeing supports in this area,” Sanders said.

Statewide, Sanders said, Boeing does over $1 billion in business annually, primarily at locations in Fort Walton Beach, Titusville, Jacksonville and near the Kennedy Space Center.

“We as a community could not ask for a better community leader to be one of our most famous businesses,” said Ted Corcoran, president of the Greater Fort Walton Beach Chamber of Commerce.

Along with its business footprint, Boeing serves as one of Northwest Florida’s corporate benefactors.

Sanders said the company contributes millions annually to support education and the environment and offered as an example a recent excursion by over 100 company volunteers to a beach in nearby Destin, where the group collaborated to clean up four miles of beach.

“Boeing is a very unique business in our community,” Corcoran said. “They go about their business very quietly. Most of our residents and visitors are not their customer, and probably don’t even know they are here.

“But they always commit much time and energy investing in our community. As a company they are sponsors of many worthwhile endeavors, and their employees participate on most of the major fundraisers in the community,” Corcoran said. “They simply go about their business, employing hundreds of our friends and neighbors, yet ask nothing in the process.”

GulfCoastAerospaceCorridor.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.