|
Only have a minute? Listen instead
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
HARLINGEN — One of the Rio Grande Valley’s first major aerospace companies is working with Cameron County to help its employees find new jobs as it winds down local operations while planning to close at the end of the year.
Meanwhile, Valley International Airport is working with the Harlingen Economic Development Corporation to search for a company to lease the sprawling building that’s been home to United Launch Alliance, or ULA, a national rocket manufacturer that’s served as a cornerstone of the city’s plans to develop an aerospace industry cluster.
Early this year, ULA announced it was shutting down its Harlingen plant, which was employing about 100 workers making good-paying salaries, at the end of December.
The move comes as ULA transitions away from its Atlas V rocket to the new Vulcan Centaur.
Since the Atlas entered the market in 2002, the Harlingen plant has specialized in the rocket known as one of the industry’s most reliable.
Meanwhile, ULA is working on the Vulcan at other company sites.
United Launch Alliance’s announcement to shut down its plant here came as the company faces increasing competition from rivals such as Space X, which was undercutting ULA’s rocket-launching chargers.
But ULA’s projecting its new Vulcan rocket to become much more competitive.
Finding new jobs
Now, Cameron County’s Workforce Solutions is helping ULA’s employees find new jobs, Orlando Campos, the EDC’s chief executive officer, said.
While more than 100 employees were on the company’s payroll, now about 30 workers remain at the plant, he said.
Under Workforce Solutions’ Rapid Recovery Program, the agency is helping ULA’s employees find new jobs, Pat Hobbs, its executive director, said.
“We try to go in before they’re laid off to find equal or better employment so by the time they’re actually laid off they’ve got another job waiting for them,” he said. “It may not be in the same industry, but it uses transferable skills.”
If the agency can’t find some workers the right jobs, Workforce Solutions offers training to help them land jobs in industries such as aerospace, Hobbs said.
Replacing ULA
At the airport, officials are working with the EDC to search for a company to lease the 320,000-square-foot building, for which ULA’s lease expires in December 2024, Marv Esterly, the airport’s aviation director, said.
“They’re winding down operations and working closely with us to help us accommodate a new tenant,” he said. “We are working closely with the EDC to find that new tenant that’s a perfect fit for that building.”
Officials are contacting prospects in industries including maintenance repair and overhaul, which performs heavy maintenance on commercial aircraft; defense contractors; and additive manufacturing, or 3-D printing manufacturing, Esterly said.
“We feel confident we’re going to bring something to Harlingen in the near future,” he said. “I think there’s a big opportunity here to grow that facility and produce more jobs. We feel positive we will create more jobs and more revenue for the airport.”
Background
After taking over for Lockheed Martin more than 15 years ago, ULA has served as a cornerstone of Valley International Airport’s plan to diversify operations in the city which created a 479-acre aerotropolis near the airport in 2015, aiming to draw industries such as aerospace companies.
“It’s definitely the largest major aerospace company outside of Space X in the Rio Grande Valley,” Esterly said.
In 2006, Lockheed Martin and Boeing formed ULA.
In 1987, the city’s rocket-manufacturing operation began under General Dynamics before becoming Martin Marietta in 1994.
A year later, Martin Marietta and Lockheed merged, creating Lockheed Martin.
