Airline Interior innovations create more jobs

Heath Tecna, a Bellingham company that creates airline interiors is offering approximately 35 new engineering and manufacturing positions while in the process of increasing its workforce to more than 800 employees.

The hirings are a result of new contracts with international airline companies and follow layoffs in 2009 that left Heath Tecna with a workforce of 380 employees. Now it has 768 employees, most of which work in the manufacturing arena.

The new manufacturing, engineering and management positions available at Heath Tecna will bring new jobs and new residents to Bellingham. Kelly Services and Manpower, international employment agencies that hire for Heath Tecna, receive most applications for Heath Tecna assembly line jobs from the Whatcom county area, but some associates are from out of state as well.

“Our business is growing,” Rich Ballantyne, president and CEO of Heath Tecna, said. “We have quite a few contracts we’ve won over the past year.”

In 2010 Heath Tecna’s revenue was $78 million. The company generated more than $100 million in 2011.

Heath Tecna hires production line workers through temporary employment companies Manpower and Kelly Services. Engineers and supervisors are hired directly by Heath Tecna.

Heath Tecna relies on employment agencies to hire light industrial jobs with an entry-level salary of $20,800 and a salary of up to $24, 960 with more experience when working for Kelly Services.

“The main reason they do that is to ensure a good fit for the company,” said Kiera Berghof, district manager for Kelly Services.

Both the employee and Heath Tecna need to be confident in their compatibility before committing to putting in additional resources said Rodger Brown, staffing specialist at Manpower.

“It’s like a try before you buy,” he said.

After three to six months of working for Heath Tecna as an associate of Kelly Services or Manpower, a person can be employed directly by Heath Tecna.

“Our biggest challenge is hiring engineers,” Ballantyne said.

He said that Western Washington University doesn’t offer the kind of engineering major that Heath Tecna is looking for. Heath Tecna generally looks for traditional engineers such as mechanical, electrical and civil engineers. WWU offers majors in applied engineering.

“It’s a more hands on version of engineering,” WWU plastics engineering professor Nicole Hoekstra said.

A lot of the engineering job descriptions require at least five years experience, which Ballantyne says may be why new graduates are tentative about applying.

While most of Heath Tecna’s expansion is in the hiring realm, they also met with contractors last week to launch potential plans for enhancing the workplace for employees.

Some ideas include a larger lunchroom, more environmentally conscious facilities and possibly a bigger parking lot, which would be the only exterior change.

Two of its newest projects are designing the interiors for Mitsubishi Regional Jets, a contract obtained from Japan, and “Project Amber,” a retrofit design for Boeing 737 airplanes.

“If we can break into this Boeing 737 market it’s huge because there’s so many of them,” Ballantyne said.

Heath Tecna does not usually design interiors for single-aisle narrow aircrafts like the Boeing 737.  Most of their clients are international airlines that have more passenger capacity.

Zodiac Aerospace, an aerial equipment and technology company based out of France, finalized its acquisition of Heath Tecna on Sept. 1, 2011. The merging of the two companies will expand Zodiac Aerospace’s influence in the realm of aerospace innovation.

Heath Tecna’s specialty in airline cabin interiors reinforces Zodiac Aerospace’s capacity to retrofit commercial airline cabins according to a Zodiac Aerospace press release from Sept. 5, 2011.

Zodiac Aerospace is pursuing external growth strategies by buying smaller companies that specialize in airline components. It has about 20,000 employees and facilities on five continents. Zodiac Aerospace also recently solidified their acquisition of Contour Aerospace, which was Heath Tecna’s United Kingdom location until Contour changed its name in 2011.

Ballantyne said that being part of Zodiac Aerospace may have an impact on business in the future, but right now Heath Tecna is expanding because of the new projects.