PORT ANGELES — An local manufacturing operation plans to add about 20 employees during the next three years with the help of defense contractor Lockheed Martin and the Air Force.
“We are here to celebrate this mentor-protégé agreement with Lockheed Martin and the U.S. Air Force,” said Angeles Composite Technologies Inc. President Mike Rauch on Tuesday.
At the ceremony at the ACTI facility in Port Angeles attended by Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Belfair, and about 50 others, ACTI officials signed a $1.9 million contract to manufacture “bismaleimide composite” components for Lockheed’s F-22 and F-35 fighter jet programs.
Lockheed officials also signed a three-year $1 million annual contract with the Air Force to teach ACTI employees how to make the parts through the Department of Defense’s “Mentor-Protégé Program.”
Mario Ramirez, manager of Lockheed’s mentor program, said the program aims to transform small businesses that have global applications.
The protégé becomes a valued business partner to the mentor, he said.
Parts supplier
Angeles Composite Technologies Inc. manufactures stiff, lightweight, high-strength aircraft parts from composite materials.
Rauch said ACTI has made commercial aircraft parts for 10 years, growing from 18 employees to 92 and still going.
Now the Port Angeles-based company will become a parts supplier for the most sophisticated aircraft in the world, he said.
ACTI occupies the 1030 and 1040 Buildings — each about 25,000 square feet — at the Port of Port Angeles’ Airport Industrial Park, 2140 W. 18th St.
Operations Manager Fred Hewins said the company plans to expand to a third building and also might expand to three shifts and begin operating seven days a week.