The Blog

Rogers Weed, Director, Department of Commerce

10/06/09

Why is Washington the best place in the world to build airplanes?

Plenty of reasons, including the assurance of highest quality production because of our highly skilled workforce, our mature vocational training system and our broad base of other aerospace companies in the region.

As Boeing looks to site a second 787 production line, it’s clear that Washington represents the lowest overall risk of any location. All the pieces are already in place and supply chain logistics will be much simpler if optimized around a single geographical location. Plus, many things would have to be created from scratch in a new location, creating risk for costly delays and mistakes.

Washington is a very cost-competitive place to locate, given the aerospace tax incentives already in place and the positive direction our Unemployment Insurance rates are trending relative to other states. These and other strong advantages are at the core of our business case presented to Boeing for consolidating their 787 Dreamliner assembly lines here in Washington.

While the 700-900 new jobs represented by the second assembly line have our primary attention right now, just over the horizon is a far bigger opportunity for Boeing and Washington State to win the Air Force tanker business. Through the Washington Aerospace Partnership, business, labor and government are all working together to bring this significant piece of business here.

Beyond that, we look at opportunities like the Unmanned Aerial Surveillance Division that Boeing recently decided to headquarter in Renton and their subsidiary Insitu in Bingen and White Salmon, as a great long range opportunity to create more aerospace and defense jobs in our state.

Washington State is a product that competes every day to retain, expand and attract employers; whether it’s large “anchor tenants” like Boeing or a small clean energy startup in the Tri-Cities.

Growing one of the world’s top aerospace industry centers here in Washington was enabled by partnerships and a common focus over many years. Economic success is built on a culture of innovation, shared commitment and strategic investments in education and workforce, world-class research centers, public infrastructure, environmental protection and community capacity.

Staying competitive in an increasingly complicated global economy, with the pace of technological innovation accelerating, demands that we know more and understand better than our competitors what existing and new companies need to grow and prosper. We have to be smarter about the changing needs of business, more nimble and efficient in the ways we work with business, and laser-focused on keeping and creating more good jobs throughout the entire state.

Commerce intends to be the “Product Manager” for our state. We will help our partners around the state sell and market Washington every day, and get competitive intelligence from them to know where we’re winning and losing so that we can inform policy makers in Olympia about how we keep improving our product, and growing and improving jobs in the process.