One part of the local economic picture:
Among the dignitaries speaking at Wednesday’s ceremonial opening of the new Google campus in Kirkland was the guy who first approved the company’s engineering office in the Seattle area.
Alan Eustace, Google senior vice president of engineering and research, said it began five years ago when three smart and persuasive people applied at once to work at Google and they wanted to work in the area.
Another part of that picture:
Kight said the goal is to have the new facility in Charleston up and running by 2011, with the first airplane rolling out in 2012.
Boeing will also paint, flight test and deliver the airplanes from there.
For the first two to three years of 787 production, Kight said, there will be a surge of production in Everett to ensure the successful introduction of the 787-9, the first derivative model of the 787 after the initial 787-8.
After that, he said, the production surge in Everett will be phased out and moved to Charleston.
The order of the our economic galaxy: Tacoma has a military base; Bellevue’s base is information technologies; Seattle, the core of the galaxy, has a health and education base; Everett has its base in aircraft production. What will be the fate of Everett? The Detroit of the future? Everything now depends on the success or failure of airplane production (which is not the same as automobile production) in a neoliberal environment. Meaning, can reliable airplanes be made in conditions that are unfavorable to workers? We will find out soon enough.
note 5 years ago google had just dropped off 2 billion in the bank after their IPO.
with that cash, i think they can afford to rent out a floor or two in the second biggest tech area in the US.
About the only thing I know for sure is that reliable airplanes can’t be made in Europe, even with huge government subsidies.
Bombardier should set-up shop in Everett.
@2, that’s hilarious. Did you see the size of that tax package SC gave? Not to mention the ones we’ve given Boeing over the years. And the Exim Bank support. Boeing gets just as many subsidies as Airbus, and Airbus’s planes are just as reliable. There’s really not a lot to choose from between the two.
Tupolev, now….
they make BMWs in SC. they’re “reliable”, i’ve heard.
Anything to escape the unions, even moving to the Confederacy.
But Boeing’s been boom and bust since the 60’s. Don’t count on Boeing for economic stability.
Jetliners are a fair bit more complicated than BMWs.
Charles: Don’t forget, the “core of galaxies” is where the black holes live.
(RE:Everett: it will go down in history as “the pearl of the Northwest” which produced Mallacehands, god bless it!)
everett has a naval base
Everett, Kent, and Renton are all geared to supply war machines for the perpetual Military Industrial Complex to fight our multiple wars of choice (not need) worldwide.
… right?
Boeing won’t be able to produce reliable airplanes until they work out the supply chain issues they created by trying to outsource EVERYTHING. It was a bad idea that was poorly executed. The whole 787 program they’ve been betting so much on is circling the drain because of that choice. You can tag labor with some blame, but the fundamental issue is with management.
Dwight @11, it always is. It’s not a whole lot different than watching the car industry collapse, or the British car industry before them.
Will @10: the future’s in drones, not planes. Boeing drone subsidiary Insitu is in Bingen/White Salmon, down in the Gorge — not Everett or Kent or Renton.
Tacoma has TWO military bases
Boeing may build the 787 in SC, but they’ll build the next model (if there is one) in China