Wednesday, October 05, 2005
By Nancy Stier
CHRONICLE CORRESPONDENT

A local manufacturer of parts for jet engines has won some major contracts, and will pump $8.7 million into its Norton Shores plant that will create an estimated 55 full-time jobs by the middle of next year.

Johnson Technology Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fortune 500 giant General Electric Co., which bought Johnson Technology in 1997. Since then, company officials said they streamlined its production methods and employed other knowledge of the larger firm to increase sales more than five times to $28 million. It employs about 480 workers in two local plants.

The largest facility is in Muskegon's Port City Industrial Park, and there's another smaller plant in the Norton Shores Industrial Center at 6060 Norton Center Drive. New jobs added next year will be in Norton Shores, where 109 people now work full time producing jet engine parts for commercial and military aircraft.

Recent contracts Johnson Technology won to make parts for Boeing 737 jet engines are responsible for the latest expansion, according to David Yacavone, president of the local firm. The company had been making 50 percent of a type of turbine engine vanes used in Boeing 737s and recently won a contract to produce all of them, Yacavone said. In addition, the firm hopes to make 60,000 shrouds -- the metal casing around the turbine blades -- each year for the same type of engine.

To increase production to those levels, the company will pump $8.4 million into new machinery and equipment for its Norton Shores facility and invest another $256,000 improving the building.

The Norton Shores City Council Tuesday unanimously granted the firm the maximum property tax cut allowed by law of 50 percent for 12 years on the investments. City staff said the tax cut will still bring in an additional $18,000 in property taxes for the city during the first year after the improvements and a total of $118,835 for all property taxes paid to schools and local government.

"We wish you well. It's a good expansion for our community," Mayor Nancy Crandall told company officials.

Yacavone said the 55 new jobs should all be created by the middle of next year. Average pay for the company is $16 per hour, but entry-level employees earn less than that, he said. Those hired will work in machining or welding positions. They will use advanced technology to take raw parts produced by firms like Howmet Castings in Whitehall and machine them into finished engine components.