From Deseret News archives:
Jet-maker is expanding in Ogden: Adam Aircraft is expected to add 1,255 jobs by '09
Adam Aircraft Industries Inc., based in Colorado, said Friday that it has selected Ogden for an expansion. The announcement came shortly after a state board reworked an economic development incentive to get the jobs to come to Utah.
"Ogden is our choice," company spokeswoman Shelly Simi said Friday afternoon, although she cautioned that Adam Aircraft still needs to work through some infrastructure issues and to sign agreements.
"We are thrilled with their (the board's) decision, and we will work toward bringing this to fruition and being able to expand our facilities to bring a manufacturing facility to Utah," she said.
The company, founded in 1998, has about 50 employees at a 55,000-square-foot facility at the south end of Ogden-Hinckley Airport. They design, develop and produce the six-seat A500, a twin-propeller aircraft that received Federal Aviation Administration certification in 2005.
The site would be used for producing the seven-seat A700, a similar plane powered by a pair of jets, once the company gets FAA certification for that aircraft. That is expected to occur next year. Both aircraft use lightweight carbon-fiber composite materials.
"We already have the facility there, but it would be the full expansion," Simi said. "What we want to do is have it as our world production facility and world-class delivery center."
The company wants to ramp up to full capacity at the facility in 2009 and use it for the final assembly of the A500 and future assembly of the A700, plus the customer delivery center, Simi said.
Documents used by the Governor's Office of Economic Development Board on Friday indicated that Ogden was competing with Colorado, Arkansas and Texas for the expansion.
"It's certainly a great employee base that's there," Simi said of Ogden. "You've got a lot of the technology background. You have people with the background in composites. And then there's the location itself. It's not that far from Denver."
Adam Aircraft's headquarters are south of Denver at the Centennial Airport in Englewood.
Another advantage for Ogden was Michigan-based Williams International, which will produce the jet engines for the A700. That company has a facility at the north end of the Ogden airport.
The A700 production currently is in Englewood. Adam Aircraft will maintain its headquarters there and continue to have research and development, flight tests, engineering and initial production of the A700 at that site — continuing its growth as the company expands its family of aircraft, Simi said.
