More on Smith’s move to Everett

Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, November 2, 2005

Smiths Aerospace announced last week — while I was huddled at home getting in some good quality time sneezing and coughing — that it’s moving into Boeing’s old Harbour Pointe building in Mukilteo, where it plans to establish an engineering center to work with Boeing on the 787. (See Herald colleague Eric Fetters’ story here: http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/05/10/29/100bus_787001.cfm )

Steve Wilhelm at the Puget Sound Business Journal got an interview with a Smiths exec, and filed a more-detailed story http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2005/10/31/story3.html?page=1 on the announcement and its implications — this could be the first of several announcements about suppliers coming to the area.

Key Quote, from Smiths VP Jim Shaw: “‘You can do a lot of things on a virtual basis, but there’s nothing better than having engineers in the same room working out problems,’ he said. ‘The fact that we’re literally five minutes away from Boeing is a huge benefit in terms of us getting to Boeing quickly, or them coming to our facility.’”