States make their play to poach Boeing from Washington

Washington is known as one of the world’s aerospace hubs, and other states are looking to poach some of our best and brightest employees and companies so they can get into the game.

Representatives from those states are in Everett this week to pitch those companies.

Washington didn’t used to have to worry about impressing companies like Boeing or the smaller firms that support it to make sure they stayed in Puget Sound, but the playing field has changed.

Other states are now competing with Washington over future Boeing sites, programs and jobs.

Boeing is expanding its footprint in South Carolina, and representatives from that state are attending the 8th Annual Governor Aerospace Summit this week. Utah is here. So is Texas.

They all want to grow their piece of the aerospace pie, and they are all eying the 777X, the next generation of the 777.

“The 777X is the next big opportunity in commercial airplanes, and the governor is committed to doing everything we can to make sure that that airplane is built in Washington,” director of the Washington Office of Aerospace Alex Pietsch said.

“We’ve heard a lot about how competitive the playing field is out there and what these other states are doing,” he said. “I really look forward to the opportunity to look these guys in the eye and hear their pitch. I think we’ll definitely learn something from them.”

Governor Inslee will be delivering the keynote address at the conference, and he will lay out why he believes Boeing should keep as much work as it can in Washington, but Pietsch said the governor knows his pitch needs to be just as good as the other states.

“Many, many states and many, many countries want the economic impact that aerospace generates here in the state of Washington,” Pietsch said. “It’s extremely competitive. We need to be at the top of our game.”

The economic impact of aerospace in this state can’t be undersold. There are more than 84,000 Boeing workers in Washington, and most experts say there are four other jobs supported or created in this state by each one of those Boeing jobs.

Pietsch said he’ll be delivering a report at this conference that will make that impact crystal clear.

“We’ll be able to tell you each airplane program and its economic benefit,” he said. “I think that people’s eyebrows will be raised by the significance of the economic value of this industry and this company, in particular, here in Washington.”

This is the first time that out-of-state presenters will be making their pitches to possibly lure away aerospace jobs and companies at this annual conference.