PORT ANGELES — More than 100 people attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony earlier this week for a building in Airport Industrial Park near William R. Fairchild International Airport that will expand space — and jobs — for Angeles Composite Technologies Inc.
“We all do this with one objective: to create jobs,” said Port of Port Angeles Commissioner John Calhoun at Monday’s celebration.
“It’s a wonderful demonstration of private and public cooperation,” Calhoun said.
The opening of the composite manufacturing building at 2138 W. 18th St. will lead to as many as 50 new jobs in Port Angeles, according to Mike Rauch, president and chief executive officer of Angeles Composite Technologies Inc., or ACTI, an aerospace manufacturing company that serves commercial and military markets.
ACTI now employs about 115 people.
“We need to hire 10 people a month for the next four to six months,” Rauch said.
A second building under construction, which is a continuation of a $4.2 million Port of Port Angeles investment at the industrial park, may attract even more jobs at a later date, Rauch said.
Port Angeles City Council members, Clallam County commissioners and current and past Port of Port Angeles commissioners were on hand Monday during the ceremony to see what their cooperation had wrought.
“The dedication of this new composite campus creates expanded opportunities for our community to offer new family-wage jobs to our local citizens,” said Mayor Cherie Kidd
The city of Port Angeles contributed $400,000 in electrical, stormwater and sidewalk infrastructure to help the port develop the area.
A letter of congratulations from 6th Congressional District Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Belfair — whose district includes the North Olympic Peninsula — was read by Judith Morris, who staffs Dicks’ Port Angeles office.
“This is a major step forward for the Port Angeles Community, and it leaves us well-poised to add substantial manufacturing capability at this critical time,” Dicks wrote.
The complex covers 20 acres of the port’s 120-acre industrial park, where ACTI and Westport Shipyard occupy the main buildings in the manufacturing campus.
The 25,000-square-foot building’s front offices and break room are complete, but the cavernous interior section still needs work, Rauch said.
Once the final details are done, which Rauch said should be complete before the end of February, it will take about six months to make the building dust-free.
“The entire room will be a clean room,” Rauch said, indicating the cavernous main room of the building.
Many of the jobs are in manufacturing, for which a Peninsula College course has been created to train new workers for the growing composites industry, Rauch said.
The graduates of that program will be guaranteed an interview at ACTI, he added.
The company also will need support staff, including IT technicians, and accounting and quality control personnel, he said.
ACTI’s major contracts are with Boeing, Bombardier Aerospace and Lockheed Martin, with the company’s products used in the manufacture of F-22 aircraft and the new F-35 aircraft, Rauch said.
“The F-35 is the big player, the largest defense contract ever issued by the government,” he said.
The new building should be able to hold expected ACTI expansions until 2014, when Rauch said they may need a second building, which is already under construction next door to the clean-room building.
Port commissioners approved a five-year lease agreement with ACTI for the first building August.
If the company decides to rent the additional building, it may locate support activities, such as quality control and machining operations, into the building.
Port officials have said the campus will complement existing port tenants as well as composite manufacturers in the aerospace, marine and alternative-energy fields.
All hiring at ACTI is through WorkSource, Rauch said.
A WorkSource center for both Clallam and Jefferson counties is in Port Angeles at 228 W. First St., Suite A. A Port Hadlock WorkSource affiliate is at 201 W. Pattison St.
For more WorkSource information,visit www.olympicworksource.com or phone 360-457-2103 for the Port Angeles office and 360-379-5036 for the Port Hadlock office.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.