State aerospace industry meets to exchange ideas
By D.R. STEWART World Staff Writer
As industry leaders gather for the 8th Annual Oklahoma Aerospace Summit & Expo, the commercial, civil and military aviation sectors are in their third trough in the last 20 years.
"There was the early 1990s, the big bump after 9/11 and this — the perfect storm in which the global economic condition is hitting us," said Mary Smith, executive director of the Oklahoma Aerospace Alliance.
This latest hard time for the aerospace industry, Smith said, is an opportunity for its leaders to confer and exchange ideas and to attend workshops designed to help companies achieve success. They are gathering Tuesday at the Crowne Plaza Hotel downtown.
The importance of the aerospace industry to the state was outlined two years ago in an Oklahoma Department of Commerce report called "Oklahoma's Aerospace Industry Workforce." It found that there are 535 aerospace companies providing 115,772 direct and indirect jobs, or 4.3 percent of the state's work force.
The study also stated that aerospace jobs pay an average of $54,719 a year compared with the average Oklahoma wage of $29,000.
Despite the global recession, job and salary cuts at aircraft manufacturers and the airlines, Oklahoma is well positioned to retain and expand its aerospace presence, said Kell Kelly, CEO of SpiritBank in Tulsa.
"The commercial sector has been hurting for some time, but people are going to continue to fly," Kelly said. "All planes that continue to fly are going to need to be maintained. While we don't
have a commercial airline headquarters, we have MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) facilities."
Oklahoma is invested in the industry for the long term with companies such as NORDAM Group, Spirit AeroSystems Inc., Lufthansa Technik, Tinker Air Force Base and hundreds of aircraft component manufacturers, suppliers and subcontractors. And in Tulsa, American Airlines employs 7,000 people at the largest aircraft overhaul base in the world.
"It's an industry of the future, an industry of today," Kelly said. "It's a well-paying profession today, and it will be for many years to come."
In a recession, Oklahoma's MRO capabilities provide the state with resources to weather the storm.
"No matter how you look at it, MRO demand will continue to grow," Smith said. "A lot of new aircraft orders have been put on hold, which means there will be more MRO work on older aircraft. Tinker's and American's MRO businesses will be doing well. And it means all our suppliers will be doing well."
Two important topics at the aerospace summit will be work-force training and research, Smith said.
"We have to be sure there is a continuing conversation between the Oklahoma aerospace industry, the state of Oklahoma and educational and training institutions," Smith said. "We need to be producing the work force of the future that will support this industry.
"We need hands-on laboratories at American Airlines and NORDAM. We need to be sitting down with the training and research people to figure out ways to tie education to the industry, and the state needs to incentivize that effort."
Source: Tulsa World