selected an existing facility in the city for a battery manufacturing facility that supplies the defense and aerospace
industries. “One of the reasons EaglePicher and other
companies selected our region is the ability of the university
to provide a technical workforce,” Turnbull says.
“Working with workforce training partners is paramount,”
says Dan Henderson, business development manager, for the
city of Gilbert, Ariz. “It is the platform for innovation.” Gilbert,
part of the Phoenix metro, is home to a large number of
supply-chain oriented, high-tech manufacturing companies, which supply to the Intels, Oracles and Motorolas of
the world. These companies are involved with macroeconomics, nanotech, components and composites, Henderson says.
Henderson says Gilbert’s officials are working with the
innovation offices at the state’s public universities in order to
provide area companies with education and coaching, connecting the innovation with entrepreneurship activities. “We
are also working with a program at Arizona State University
that accelerates scientific discoveries into useful technologies
and those business applications,” Henderson says. Gilbert’s
companies also benefit from the Maricopa Community
College system in the region, where the Pecos campus in
Chandler has strong training programs in business, technology and manufacturing; and the Williams Gateway campus in
Mesa has a strong aerospace program.
Gilbert was recently selected by Lockheed Martin as the
location for the consolidation of activities at facilities in
Arizona, Korea and Germany. The company is conducting
optics and laser technology work for the Apache
Helicopter. This program is funded through 2040, and
the company expects to create 100 jobs in Gilbert in the
future to support these activities.
Structures Readily Available
Henderson says the Lockheed Martin project began in
the first quarter of this year, and the company was in
place by the second quarter. The company moved into an
existing facility, which it retrofitted to suit its needs. “We
took the project from concept to reality in less than 90
days,” Henderson says. “Our Partners Experiencing
Results Together program offers a process that has value.
The ability to work with us to identify an available facility
and move in to it quickly was critical.”
In North Carolina, a partnership between Nash County,
the city of Rocky Mount and the Golden LEAF
Foundation, among other organizations, was formed to
build the Gateway Technology Center, a unique partnership between North Carolina Wesleyan College, North
Carolina State University and Eastern Carolina University.
The center opened in 2006 in order to bring face-to-face
engineering and instruction to the Rocky Mount area to grow
its technical skills base, says John Gessaman, president and
CEO, Carolinas Gateway Partnership, which markets the
counties of Nash and Edgecombe.
