Victims of their own success

Valley Press ^ | on Tuesday, July 11, 2006 | ALLISON GATLIN

[BenLurkin]

MOJAVE - Home to cutting-edge aerospace design and composite fabrication, Scaled Composites has seen its contracts and work force grow by leaps and bounds. In the two years since the company made headlines worldwide with the successful spaceflights of SpaceShipOne - the first privately funded manned space program - and just more than a year since the company's Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer set records for the first solo transglobal flight, the Mojave Airport-based firm founded by designer Burt Rutan has taken off in a new era of prosperity.

"We're victims of our own success," said Kevin Mickey, vice president of program management. "There's been a lot of work we've been interested in for a long time that has coincided with the follow-on to SpaceShipOne."

Among other projects, Scaled Composites is working on SpaceShipTwo, the larger successor to SpaceShipOne intended to carry paying passengers on suborbital space flights, as well as the carrier aircraft to be used for air-launching the spacecraft.

In addition to self-generated projects such as SpaceShipOne, Scaled provides flight test services and specialized composite fabrication for outside clients, including the major aerospace companies such as Northrop Grumman and The Boeing Co.

For example, Scaled's aircraft Proteus often is used as a testbed for various systems for outside clients.

SpaceShipOne's carrier aircraft, White Knight, is under contract with Boeing for drop-tests of its X-37, an unmanned technology concept demonstrator for future space vehicles.

"We're still on the lookout for unique flight test opportunities," Mickey said. "Flight testing is really where our hearts lie."

Scaled Composites has hired about 65 new employees since the beginning of the year and expects to bring on another 60 or so, he said.

[kingu]

They've got some heavy turnover in workers there; nearly half of their original employees involved in the SpaceShipOne program have been hired off by other companies. And what's great is that they've taken so many kids who had zero hope of going to college or getting a better job than flipping hamburgers and turned them into skilled craftsmen.

Honestly, their biggest problem is where they're located. Just offering 20k a year more in pay isn't enough to steal their employees, they want homes in more hospitable climates - places that don't have temps upwards of 95 at midnight. An old boss of mine is probably their biggest pain in the rump; he's stolen 24 of their employees so far. But he also contracts with them, so it's a friendly rivalry.

[mugs99]

And what's great is that they've taken so many kids who had zero hope of going to college or getting a better job than flipping hamburgers and turned them into skilled craftsmen.

Good old fashioned American ingenuity!
.

[Starwolf]

Some of us like that kind of environment, I bailed out of the mid atlantic area to return to the Mojave