Safran’s upcoming production expansion is highlighted by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden

26/01/2012

Vice President Joe Biden today applauded Safran for its strategy to expand production capabilities locally in the U.S., underscoring how the company’s future production facility in Rochester, New Hampshire will create jobs and help strengthen the economy.

Biden was speaking at the Rochester location where Safran Aerospace Composite and Albany Engineered Composites will locate the new manufacturing capacity to produce woven carbon parts for the new-generation LEAP commercial jetliner engine – which is being developed by CFM International, the 50/50 joint venture company between Snecma of the Safran Group and GE.

As partners under a commercial development agreement, Safran Aerospace Composite is coming to Rochester, joining Albany Engineered Composites – which has been an exclusive Safran partner since the late 1990s for three-dimensional weaving of carbon-fiber preforms. In their new joint activity, the two companies also formed a partnership with Great Bay Community College in Portsmouth, New Hampshire to train workers for the hundreds of high-tech manufacturing jobs they are bringing to the region – a strategy Biden hopes to see more of in the U.S.

Over the next several years, nearly 400 new jobs will come to Rochester with the new manufacturing plant – the construction of which is expected to begin later in 2012. When the plant becomes operational during 2013, the company will start off with about 50 employees, to be followed by a progressive "ramp up" period of hiring.