Northwest Aerospace News December 2018 | January 2019 Issue No. 6 | Page 28

I
t’s been less affected than some by the acceler-
ated demands caused by Boeing and Airbus rate
increases, he said.
“We probably have more sophisticated planning
than maybe the average aerospace company. We
really focus on capacity planning and rate readiness
planning,” he said. “I’m not saying it’s been easy,
but we haven’t had any delays.”
Being part of a larger corporate entity also has
helped protect it from normal volatility in the raw
materials markets and to some degree those caused
by the various tariffs and duties the United States
and its trading partners have imposed upon each
other in the past two years.
“We have corporate infrastructure and long-term
agreements. We do anticipate some changes,” he
said, but to date, it’s not been a major issue.
Skelly said he also has been able to recruit and
retain an adequate supply of skilled workers, even
as his workforce has more than doubled in size in
recent years.
Particularly for engineers, the Everett plant is an at-
tractive place to work, he said. It’s an environment
where we have a large number of Tier 1 interna-
tional airline customers and an engineer can design
something today, and within a few weeks see the
first articles being fabricated, which is highly
rewarding.
There’s an R&D team and an industrial design team
on-site, and the company has a FAA ODA STC and
PMA delegations, which means we have a lot of
subject matter experts and Unit Members/DER’s
on site – this is a superb environment for mentoring
engineers and for them to develop and expand their
skills.
“This is sort of the appeal of the
work environment here: engineering
and production all in one site, with
lots of opportunity to grow,” Skelly
said. “That’s part of our brand here,
that it’s a good place to work.”
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