Employees: New Boeing plant in Gresham a big vote of confidence
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GRESHAM, Ore. – Boeing invested big in Oregon Friday by opening a new chemical processing plant in this Portland suburb, bringing job security to hundreds of workers in the area.
Employees see the move as a vote of confidence from Boeing. Over two years of construction the company now has a new 64,000 square foot building with millions of dollars of brand new equipment. On top of all that there was another renovation on the other end of campus.
One employee said, "This means we'll be here for a long time."
Behind Friday's ribbon-cutting that included champagne, is a massive chemical processing plant designed to treat parts for the company's newest addition: the big 787 Dreamliner that touched down in Portland last month.
Automated, high-tech machines will dip parts of the plane into baths to prevent them from corroding. It is all something veteran employees here thought they'd never see.
"We have a current facility that's been here since the early 1960s," said David Hand. "When they come over here, and they look at this, they're excited. They see everything clean, modern – it's huge. So they're very excited to start work here."
Down the block is another addition of 30,000 square feet. Now, the company has the room to fill the demand to manufacture parts for Boeing's 737.
"We're in historically one of the biggest growth periods in commercial airplanes' history," said employee Don Hendrickson.
It's all a good sign for employees like Hendrickson, who's worked at the Boeing site in Gresham for more than 20 years and has seen it grow from a one-building facility to a place four times that size.
"These are long-term commitments," he said.
Boeing projects the demand for commercial airplane production will double with the size of the workforce growing every year. Boeing says it will likely have to fill about 100 to 150 positions every year to just maintain that staffing level. Boeing is forecasting demand for commercial airline production to double during the next 20 years.
The Gresham plant is the 12th of Boeing's fabrication unit. Six of the nine American plants are located in the Pacific Northwest. Two are in Australia and one is in Canada.
If it's typical of Boeings Unions that control the company, there will be quite a bit of time lost due to disputes, plus many will be on permanent layoff notices, the only way Boeing can get rid of poor employees is to notifiy everyone of a layoff, then call back those they want to keep. I had a friend (passed away) that worked for Boeing for over 24 years, and got her first layoff notice after about 6 months...she never worked a day for the next 24 years that she wasn't on a layoff notice, and would be called back to work on the last day of her 'employment', then receive another notice the next week when she arrived at work. That was in Seattle, hope the Unions don't cause that same problem down here.
As a native of northwest Multnomah County who is generally aggressively opposed to non-local developers, I feel like congratulating Boeing and wishing them the best of luck. The cool thing about the plant is that unless you drive past it on Sandy, you probably don't even know it's there. There's farmland across the road from them, though, and the only hesitation I have is of what might start appearing in local produce. Did you guys know that other people are planning to put an energy plant along the Sandy River, about a quarter of a mile from the end of Runway 25 at Troutdale? There's been almost nothing of it in the local newspapers but it's going to be a huge controversy.
love me some chemicals in the ground water....
Hopefully the union's dont screw it up
 @Jr Yea last thing we need is anyone getting paid what their worth....
@cptmac11 @Jr Seriously, how will companies set record profits if they pay their employees enough to live on?
And does boeing pay any corporate taxes to the state?
 @portlandborn83 Who cares as long as they keep jobs here in the Portland area.
@onceagain @portlandborn83 Well, I care because whether Nike or Intel pay taxes or not, few people will say Oregon is better now that Nike, Intel, etc have paved over the countryside. HP dramatically changed Corvallis, but they hired out of Palo Alto. Often, much of HP-CVO is a ghost town, and so now the economic health of the area is tied to the success of one business. Whenever the jobs go away due to corporate forces, even if it's just for awhile, the rest of the community must stiil pay for all of the roads and services that were built to support the HP campus.
 @portlandborn83   Really? You're fine with corporate welfare as long as you have a job? That just means that all the other TAX paying citizens are subsidizing your job.Â
 @wondering It's better than the working class subsidizing those who want to sit around all day and do nothing living on the government dime.