Scott Landguth - Executive Director at Ellsworth Development Authority

What do you say to a listener who might ask why a company that size needs a little, like, public help? Like, what's the...

We're talk about the investment part of this-

So-

...

in the state.

So, you know, as we're building this- this building, um, they're gonna be a tenant in it.

Yeah.

You know, and- and they, you know, we hope to keep them long-term, and, but as the B-21 program develops over 10, 15, 20 years, the amount of Northrop employees potentially could go down out of that because there'll be more airmen and more active duty Air Force trained there.

So their permanence is a little bit, you know, different.

We hope to be able to convince them that this is a great place for them to stay long-term.

Um, the actual governor's money and everything going in is- is more to support the innovation district itself.

So it's not necessarily going to Northrop, it's going for- for us to build that building.

That's where I've also seen, we've seen this in other industries where we put out, you know, certain types of things like this for Caterpillar or others, and they've had people who then stay here, grow here, they have kids here, they start other businesses here.

You know, you get that money back 100 times to one usually.

Yeah, absolutely.

I, uh, you know, they- they're hiring already, Northrop is.

So a- again, it's an opportunity for them to have interns and s- and students and- and people s- you know, stay in the area instead of, like I said, going to California or Florida or Virginia or, you know, where their other, or Utah, where their other installations, you know, large installations are.

So, you know, anything we can do to- to keep them, and then, you know, down the road, if, uh, if we have those engineers and we f- and we show Northrop how- how the quality of employee that I believe that they're gonna have coming out of the School of Mines, which- which again, they're already hiring some.

If we can keep that here, um, who knows what they'll be working on-

Right

... down the road.

It, the next, the next bomber, the next fighter, the next what, you know, whatever Northrop's projects are.

Um, you know, that's our goal, and that's our challenge after, um, like I think I said at the beginning, they were coming for the B-21.

Mm-hmm.

Now we have a chance.