State and local officials gathered near the Dayton Airport Wednesday to celebrate the opening of the Sierra Nevada Corporation Aviation Innovation & Technology Center. They were joined by economic development officials from JobsOhio and the Dayton Development Coalition.
This new center will focus on the maintenance and repair of aircraft, and will work closely with Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. It will see the creation of nearly 150 jobs.
Workers will repair and maintain military aircraft. SNC is the first private company to do so in the Dayton region since WWII.
“These are the kinds of jobs the Dayton area needs because they are high paying-jobs,” Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted said. “They help improve the quality of life for the entire community. And it helps service Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and puts a stake in the ground that Dayton is not only the past part of aviation, but it’s the present and the future.”
The hangar sits on a 16-acre Dayton International Airport site. It is a modern, large-scale hangar that the Sierra Nevada Corporation says will be capable of supporting some of the largest aviation projects in the world.
“This is the first of its kind,” said Fatih Ozmen, CEO and co-owner of SNC. “This hangar is very modern, the most modern you’ll find. From the structural build of it to how we are going to do the modification, engineering and technology we’ll be doing here.”
The new SNC Dayton facility will see around $11 million in annual payroll and $28 million in capital investment. It is also the first of potentially several hangars that may come to the region.
“This is our first step, first of several hangers we are going to build here and [we] have a big vision,” Ozmen said. “Within a year or so, you’re going to see this is going to create a thousand plus jobs here, and it’s going to keep growing.”
