PORT ANGELES — The success of composites industries making items ranging from snowboards to aerospace parts gives the Port of Port Angeles a vision for its future — more composite industries.
That was the message composed by Port Executive Director Jeff Robb to an audience of about 80 at Monday’s Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce meeting at the Port Angeles CrabHouse Restaurant.
Buoyed by established composites manufacturers Westport Shipyard in production yachts, Angeles Composites Technologies Inc. in aerospace and Mervin Manufacturing in athletic gear such as snowboards, the port is in the process of recruiting alternative energy manufacturers, Robb said.
“We don’t have anyone committed, but we are looking into alternative energy,” he said after the meeting.
“In cooperation with Pacific Northwest National Lab [the Battelle lab on Sequim Bay], we are looking at all opportunities.
“That could mean manufacturing, maintenance, that could mean deployments or all of the above.
“We will seize all opportunities.”
All of the opportunities are preliminary, Robb stressed, but it is part of an effort on the part of the port to brand itself and Clallam County as a prime location for composites industries.
“Last month, Gov. [Chris] Gregoire compared the future of Washington to a line in the movie ‘The Graduate’ — that line was just one word: ‘plastics,’” Robb said.
“For us, that means composites.
In her speech last month, Gregoire spoke of composites businesses in Skagit County and Moses Lake — but not Clallam County, something which stuck in the craw of port officials.
“We need to shine a bright light and brand Clallam County as a composites manufacturing location,” Robb told the chamber.
“We are already there — we just aren’t getting the credit.”
The CEO of one of the composites industries, Angeles Composites’ Mike Rauch, told the chamber audience that his company plans to expand by 20 percent every year for the next 20 years based on revenue.
He said that it was an aggressive goal, but that he and the board of directors felt it was attainable with the planned expansion.
The company has signed a nonbinding agreement with the Port of Port Angeles to lease a 25,000-square-foot building, which is under construction, at the same site as the 75,000 square feet of buildings it currently leases from the port next to William R. Fairchild International Airport in Port Angeles.
Rauch has said the company may lease more space if expansion demands it.
The port is preparing enough site space for three buildings for composites manufacturing when occupants become available, Robb said.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.