Business

Boeing breaks ground on new Auburn training site

Staff report
Boeing’s Jim Ockerman, vice president of Manufacturing and Safety for Boeing Fabrication, speaks to an audience of about 100 people gathered to celebrate the groundbreaking of the first new building to be erected on the Auburn site in nearly 25 years. Seated with him on the stage is Auburn mayor Nancy Backus and Boeing Auburn site Leader Jack Meehan.
Boeing’s Jim Ockerman, vice president of Manufacturing and Safety for Boeing Fabrication, speaks to an audience of about 100 people gathered to celebrate the groundbreaking of the first new building to be erected on the Auburn site in nearly 25 years. Seated with him on the stage is Auburn mayor Nancy Backus and Boeing Auburn site Leader Jack Meehan. Marian Lockhart The Boeing Co.

Boeing Auburn on Thursday had a groundbreaking celebration for its first new building in nearly 25 years.

The Workforce Readiness Center “represents a critical piece supporting the site’s central role in fabricating parts for Boeing Commercial Airplanes production,” the company said in a news release.

The site will have a robotics lab and offer training for the more than 5,000 Boeing Auburn workers. It also will become the new home for Auburn’s employee medical clinic and become headquarters for IAM/Boeing Joint Programs in the south Puget Sound.

The Puget Sound Business Journal reported Thursday that the center would cost $16.7 million.

“At a time Boeing is watching its spending very carefully to improve our competitiveness, this investment is significant,” said Jack Meehan, Boeing Auburn’s site leader, in Boeing’s news release.

The clinic’s former building will be replaced with an Operations Readiness Center, which will have a spare-parts warehouse.

The two buildings will replace a World War II-era structure. Construction is scheduled to begin on the second building in 2018, according to the news release.

This story was originally published December 1, 2016 at 5:27 PM with the headline "Boeing breaks ground on new Auburn training site."

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