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Aeronautics cluster creating a buzz
By Dan McCue
Staff Writer
Editor’s note: This is the final part of a six-part series examining the AngleouEconomics report and the five cluster industries the report recommended economic developers pursue.
It may have only been their second visit to an international air show, but economic developers from the Lowcountry, who’ve just returned from the Farnborough International Air Show, said they’re already beginning to see a surge in interest in the state and the Charleston area.
The reason is the nearly completed $560 million Vought-Alenia aerospace complex in North Charleston.
“It was the thing everybody was eaten up with curiosity about,” said Charleston County Economic Director J. Steven Dykes, one of 10 members of the South Carolina contingent at the air show, which was held July 17-23 in Farnborough, England, about 30 miles southwest of London.
While the junket was undertaken as part of a statewide effort to lure aeronautic businesses, local representatives making the trip were also looking to fulfill the goals of the AngelouEconomics report, which identified developing an aeronautics cluster as a way to bring high-value, quality jobs to the area.
Also representing the Lowcountry on the trip were Heyward Horton of the Charleston Regional Development Alliance and Steve Wright of the utility company SCANA Corp.
“While our group, which was headed up by Gov. Mark Sanford and Commerce Secretary Joe Taylor, was obviously there to sell the state as a whole, we didn’t have to do very much to steer the conversation our way,” Dykes said.
“What many, many people ultimately wanted to talk about was progress on the plant, which is right on schedule as we speak, and about the development of the labor force, which will be building two fuselage sections for Boeing’s new 787 jetliner,” he said.
All the major players
The International Air Show, which alternates yearly between Farnborough and Paris, is considered the premier event and showcase for the aeronautics
industry.
This year, approximately 1,480 aviation companies and affiliated organizations from more than 30 nations and representing roughly 220 aviation-related products and services attended the seven-day event.
The list of attendees reads like an industry “who’s who,” topped by Boeing, Airbus, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Finnmecannica, BAE Systems, Textron (formerly Bell Helicopter), Raytheon, Rolls Royce and Pratt & Whitney.
According to the air show’s official Web site, some $40 billion in aircraft sales were reported during the four business days of the affair.
Sanford and former Secretary of Commerce Bob Faith first set their sights in 2004 on the internationally renowned venue as a means of calling attention to the state and what it could offer the aeronautic industry.
The CRDA and Charleston County have been partners in the effort since last year, when the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce hosted its inaugural trade show booth at the Paris air show.
This year South Carolina was one of 10 states that had a booth at the show.
“In addition to manning the booth, which saw an enormous amount of
walk-up traffic, a big part of our participation at Farnborough was attending pre-arranged meetings with international aviation firms and embarking on cold calls at other aviation company booths to network and develop potential project leads,” Dykes said.
Vought Industries Inc.’s North Charleston plant, which had opened only weeks earlier, paved the group’s way to meaningful discussions with aeronautics manufacturers, Horton said.
“One of the things that was so eye-opening about Farnborough was how many of the booths had a prominent display of the 787,” he said. “Obviously, you see something like that and you immediately say, ‘Now that’s a company we need to be talking to.’
“Once we got across to them that we have significant linkages to the 787 project, I found most if not all of them opened up and wanted to talk about the project. Now, most of these companies don’t need to be here in the Lowcountry to make their contribution to the project, but I definitely came home feeling like three or four of these companies might choose to relocate here.”
Compared to other trade shows Horton has attended over the course of his career, there was real value in being at Farnborough, he said.
“The problem with a lot of trade shows is they become, more or less, an occasion of trick or treat for adults with various vendors’ booths giving away toys and pens and gift bags and the like,” he said. “Farnborough wasn’t like that. The people that were there were there to work, and the people you spoke to in booths weren’t salespeople or simply order-takers. They were decision-makers at the respective companies.”
Like Dykes, he said many of the questions he was asked by company representatives centered on Vought’s 342,000-square-foot building adjacent to Charleston International Airport and the slightly larger Global Aeronautica building that will be completed in September.
Also discussed with gusto was the number of orders Boeing has received for its new passenger liner. By the close of the air show, advance orders for the 787 approached 500. It is sold out for its first two years of production and is quickly filling slots for 2011 production.
“A lot of people didn’t realize the (North Charleston) buildings were already up and effectively ready for production,” Horton said. “When they learned that they were, they immediately wanted to know what we’d heard in terms of the activities of other suppliers—no one wants to be the one holding up production.
“The other thing they really wanted to know about was labor and education. In fact they often asked about those things in the same breath. ‘How large a potential work force is available?’ they’d ask. ‘What is your technical college system doing to assist in employee training?’”
Interestingly, Horton said representatives from only one of the dozens of companies he spoke with during the air show asked about South Carolina’s incentive packages.
“Their main concern, or rather, their main interest really, was in the work force,” he said. “Of course, talk of incentives will likely occur as businesses consider relocating or opening facilities here, but that’s a discussion for later. Right now, they mostly seem interested in the lay of the land now that Vought has set up shop here.”
Dan McCue is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dmccue@charlestonbusiness.com.
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