Announcement expected soon on Janicki Industries' expansion into Utah

FARMINGTON — Janicki Industries' official announcement about an expansion into Utah could be made in a week or two.

The Washington-based company wants to build a $19.5 million, 100,000-square-foot facility at East Gate, a planned industrial and business park in Layton adjacent to the east side of Hill Air Force Base, to mill composite parts for the F-35 joint strike fighter program. The facility would employ about 50 people, virtually all from the local work force.

"We are happily partnered with ATK to provide the low-rate initial production of the F-35, and there is a ramp-up of production that is expected soon," Lisa Janicki, the company's chief financial officer, told the Davis County Commission on Tuesday. "And in order to meet those production numbers, we will have to be physically closer to ATK than we are in Washington. That 1,100 miles or so is just too far to truck things back and forth expeditiously."

The commission will decide July 13 on a final resolution authorizing the issuance and sale of $9.5 million in federal stimulus bonds that will finance the purchase of milling and testing equipment for the facility. The bonds are part of $12.5 million in facility revenue bonds allocated to Davis County from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and are designed to help finance private businesses, with the county serving as a "conduit" entity.

Janicki told the commission that the bonds are "just the final piece that really fell into place that makes this possible."

While a property tax rebate incentive agreement with Layton still needs to be completed, groundbreaking could occur in July, and Janicki said the company wants the facility operational in less than a year. A company facility in Hamilton, Wash., has been doing the F-35 work but will not lose any of its 380 jobs as a result of the Utah expansion, she said.

The company has worked on Boeing 787 fuselages, NASA parts and wind turbine blades. The Utah facility will be built to "allow us to expand quickly if the need arises in the F-35 program or to expand into other composites areas," Janicki said.

"I think the fit for a family business to come into a family-oriented state, a conservative family to come into a conservative state, the fit is just beautiful," she said, "and I love the fact that we're going to be so close to Hill Air Force Base and ATK."