COVER STORY
TCBusiness.com 13
for the Boeing 767, three is a demanding
number. Of the nearly 400 workers
at the Stuart plant, more than 60 percent
are those who touch the products.
These workers are called mechanics, but
Heitkamp says, “Our people really become
skilled master mechanics” because of the
demands of the job.
PIPER AIRCRAFT
By far the largest manufacturing
employer on the Treasure Coast is Piper
Aircraft Inc., headquartered in Vero Beach.
It is enjoying a resurgence based on the
need for new pilot training aircraft. The
aviation industry has a pilot shortage.
Pilots in the United States are retiring,
fewer trained fixed-wing pilots are coming
from the U.S. military, and new pilots are
needed worldwide, says Jackie Carlon,
spokeswoman for Piper.
So, the business of making training
airplanes, called trainers, is booming. But
Piper’s business has boomed and busted
multiple times since its 1937 founding in
Pennsylvania. The salve this time is that
the market is global, and the biggest
growth is in its international business,
which was a smaller portion of the company’s
revenue when the last bust occurred.
Piper’s sales of planes to private owners
are also up.
Piper in 1955 bought land at the Vero
Beach Regional Airport and began production
in 1961 of its iconic Cherokee.
In February the company had 1,000 employees,
up from 950 a year earlier. By mid-
2019, there will be 1,100 to 1,150 people
working at its 700,000-square-foot factory
at the airport. There is another 750,000
square feet (17.2 acres) of paved surface
for airplane storage, much of which goes
to general aviation fliers for parking, Carlon
says.
Piper this year will employ more than
double the workers on hand during the
lull of production around the last recession.
In 2009, there were 550 employees,
when it produced only 14 trainer planes
and 90 planes in all.
By 2017, Piper was back up to building
99 trainers in a year, and that jumped to
146 in 2018. The 230 to be built this year
represents a production rise of almost 150
percent in two years.
In April, Piper announced that L3 Commercial
Aviation had ordered 240 Piper
aircraft, the largest civilian fleet order in its
history, with 26 scheduled for delivery this
year.
Last year, Piper’s revenue rose 37
percent to $262.6 million, which is three
times its revenue in 2009, the year that a
sovereign wealth fund for Brunei, the small
southeastern Asia nation that takes up
part of Borneo, quietly purchased Piper.
About 80,000 Piper airplanes are in use
today. Piper has frequent guided tours of
its factory.
PURSUIT BOATS
Pursuit Boats opened a factory in 1983
near the St. Lucie County airport, now
called Treasure Coast International Airport,
and has been winning marine awards and
consistently growing ever since. Along
with its neighbor, Maverick Boats, it creates
a center for marine manufacturing off
St. Lucie Boulevard in northern St. Lucie
County.
Just like at Piper and Triumph, there is
no conveyer-belt type assembly line at
Pursuit. Workers who specialize in different
parts of construction in progress move
boats along on dollies to work stations
from molds for hulls to fiberglass to paint
shop areas in Pursuit’s 250,000 square feet
of manufacturing space.
A recent expansion of its offices and
factory increased its workforce to 400 >>
PURSUIT BOATS
Three workers at Pursuit Boats in Fort Pierce apply resin and woven Fiberglas, a step in the lamination process that strengthens the hull.
/TCBusiness.com