Machine shops expect little work from 7E7

Published 9:00 pm Tuesday, December 16, 2003

ARLINGTON — While the Boeing Co.’s new 7E7 announcement was hailed by assembly-line workers, reaction was more muted among some machine shops.

Arlington’s industrial park near the municipal airport has been home to more than 20 machine shops at times. When Boeing booms, even little shops with just a few employees can get subcontracts to build jet parts.

But shop owners here say that since Sept. 11, 2001, Boeing’s bust has changed the "trickle down" dynamic that once fed excess work from big, corporate shops to the smaller, independent companies.

Even shops in between those extremes, such as Universal Aerospace with 60 employees, are not planning for a major uptick, said Jeff Pettit, company president.

"The 7E7 is not going to have as much metal," Pettit said. "I don’t know that it’ll trickle down at our level as much as some of the other jets have."

Universal Aerospace builds bulletproof metal components for the 777 and also builds parts for the 767 and tanker jets. But all told, that represents only 15 percent of his company’s business, Pettit said.

"It doesn’t really affect us," Pettit said of the 7E7. "Even if it does, it’ll be three years before they get homes for all this stuff."

In the fiberglass business, Bruce Hamilton told a similar story. Hamilton runs Stoddard International, which has made fiberglass composite parts for many Boeing planes during its 12 years in Arlington.

"I would hope to see some trickle down," Hamilton said. "I don’t really count on it."

Stoddard International employs 20 people, which is far fewer than during the 1990s.

"At one time, we had 90-plus employees," Hamilton said. "Ninety percent of our work was Boeing in 1991."

After Sept. 11, the company went down to eight employees.

"So now, we’ve completely changed our customer base," he said. "We don’t really count on Boeing anymore."

The smallest machine shops, such as the two-employee company BMG Industries, should not count on much trickle-down business either, said owner Mike Berg.

"Nobody’s getting excited around here," Berg said.

When Boeing had lots of orders for planes, work trickled down even to small shops such as Berg’s.

"All the machine shops got started back in the heyday" of the 1990s, Berg said. "Seven years ago, five years ago, things were just booming."

Now, what little work does trickle down is not as profitable.

"Competition’s pretty fierce," Berg said.

Hamilton said the industry has always boomed and busted. But even if Tuesday’s announcement is the dawning of a new upswing, it feels different this time.

"I think everybody feels this time it won’t come back. It’s going overseas."

Reporter Scott Morris: 425-339-3292 or smorris@heraldnet.com.