OKLAHOMA CITY – It’s been a century since Boeing first began.
The brand new facility in Oklahoma City is a symbol of how much they’ve grown.
The 300,000 square foot, multimillion dollar building will be the home for modernizing some legacy aircrafts including AWACS, a familiar sight near Tinker Air Force Base.
#BoeingOKC opens new lab facility today; engineers will design innovations for C-17, AWACS and next #Boeing100! pic.twitter.com/AWW84lRCz2
— Boeing Defense (@BoeingDefense) July 15, 2016
“All the aircraft that we support as they age or me need to find new capabilities for them – these are the labs that will find those innovative answers to those types of problems,” Michael Emmelheinz, vice president of large aircraft engineering & sustainment said.
Since the facility broke ground in July of last year, 600 new jobs were created.
“A majority would be new hires, not necessarily transfering in from other Boeing locations although it had some of that,” Emmelheinz said.
Governor Mary Fallin’s first bill she ever signed into law was an aerospace tax credit giving qualified employees a $5,000 annual credit for up to five years to work in the industry in Oklahoma.
“There was some discussion even this year about whether we should keep the aerospace tax credit and many of us fought hard to keep it here,” Gov. Fallin said. “I know it made a difference in attracting so many of the different divisions like a Boeing into Oklahoma.”
Her mission now: developing a workforce with the skills needed to work at Boeing.
“They’ve got to have what’s called STEM educated people in their workforce” Fallin said. “We put a big push to have more STEM certificates and graduation degrees in our state and is actually gone up 28% over the last five years.”
.@GovMaryFallin helped #BoeingOKC open our new lab facility – innovation starts now! #Boeing100 pic.twitter.com/e20AyBRBoj
— Boeing Defense (@BoeingDefense) July 15, 2016
The labs will start in the next two weeks.
The average salary for the Boeing employees is $90,000.
