COVER STORY | AEROSPACE
We are proud to announce the Grand Opening of the largest and finest thrift store in the region!
Doors Open Monday Dec. 9th at 9am! 808 N Ruby, Spokane (old Comp USA building at the intersection of Ruby, Division & West North River Drive by the Spokane River)
Explore the Arc of Spokane and find your treasure!
OPENING DAY EVENTS INCLUDE: • Hourly drawings in-store • First 40 in line receive a certificate worth $10* *Adults only. Good towards purchase in store. Limit one per family.
28 INLANDER DECEMBER 5, 2013
Fred Brown, vice-president of L&M Precision Fabrication, has seen major growth in his company in Spokane County — though he says operations would be much cheaper in Idaho.
“TURBULENCE AHEAD,” CONTINUED... tory union dues. “Look, if ‘Right to Work’ can happen in Michigan, it can happen in the state of Washington,” Baumgartner (R-Spokane) says. “Obviously, it’s a political challenge. Mandatory union donations are the No. 1 funder of Democratic candidates.” Even with the high cost of labor and contentious union negotiations, Washington has one last ace up its sleeve: The same skilled workforce that refused to take Boeing’s contract.
BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE
Washington’s trained workers are probably its best argument. As Inslee bragged on Twitter on Nov. 20: “WA has best aerospace workers in the world and hard as other states will try, they can’t replicate [local union] expertise in time to win 777X.” The 2011 Accenture study identified Washington’s skilled workforce as one of the state’s greatest strengths, but warned that other states could catch up. North Idaho College, for example, just launched an Aerospace Division this fall. It’s why the Washington State Legislature paired its big tax break for Boeing with even more funding for education. On both sides of the Cascades, local regions are investing in training. Washington State University is opening a branch campus in Everett aimed at training Boeing machinists. A $20 million federal grant to Air Washington in 2011 infused local community colleges with extra funds to improve their aerospace training. The extra funds allowed Spokane Community College to add a program focusing on composites, the material used in the 777X, and expand its aviation maintenance program by
25 percent. For his part, Inslee hasn’t just been praising Washington’s workforce; he’s been highlighting how using a less adept workforce amounts to gambling with billions of dollars. Inslee points to the 787 Dreamliner, which was plagued by new suppliers’ parts that didn’t fit and expensive mistakes made by inexperienced workers in South Carolina. Even before the 787s were temporarily grounded due to battery fires this summer, the plane had experienced three years of delays costing billions of dollars. Back at the Spokane County offices, Al French thumbs through pages from a few of the many PowerPoint presentations he’s given across the country, attempting to convince aerospace executives to invest in the Inland Northwest. The stakes remain sky-high. “There isn’t a trip I make back to D.C. that I’m not talking to someone in the aerospace industry,” he says. French says it all comes down to providing jobs. “We don’t need a big building with Boeing on it. We want the jobs,” French says. Another good thing about adding highskilled, well-paying jobs to Spokane is that they have secondary impacts. The aerospace industry carries a multiplier effect, the economist’s version of a buy-one-get-one-free policy. Adding 10 aerospace jobs, according to Greater Spokane Inc.’s estimate, creates about eight additional secondary jobs. “That’s new money — that comes from outside the community into the community, and then it ripples through,” French says. “It’s not just a job on the production line. It’s that job, plus the other jobs it supports in the community, by supporting the grocery store and the car [salesman] and the construction worker.” n