GE Aviation and government officials were on hand on Tuesday to announce plans to expand the company’s plant in Newark.
GE will spend $27 million to move the plant into a “LEAN” laboratory that will support increased production of ceramic matrix composites that will be used on engines of the next generation of jet aircraft used by Boeing, Airbus and other plane-makers.
The expansion could add up to 70 full-time jobs.
On hand at the event was Gov. Jack Markell; Bernice Whaley, deputy director of the Delaware Economic Development Office; New Castle County Executive Tom Gordon and Newark Mayor Vance Funk.
The state, through the Delaware Economic Development Office invested in the project through the Delaware Strategic Fund. The state will provide GE Aviation with a $304,833 performance grant and a $810,000 capital expenditures matching grant.
The Newark plant currently has 101 employees (88 permanent) at its 110,000-square-foot plant in Newark, and has made a commitment to employ 151 people at the site by the end of 2016.
The plant has working in the development phase of the new materials and is now moving toward commercializing the technology. (See above video for more details).
Markell said GE could have invested elsewhere, but chose Newark in what he viewed as an endorsement of the quality of the plant’s workforce.
Before the business was acquired by GE, the plant on Bellevue Road on the south end of Newark, was operated by Allied-Signal and later Honeywell.
