Horst Engineering, an East Hartford company that makes parts for aerospace and high tech industries, opened a new manufacturing center this week.
The company acquired the seven-acre property on 141 Prestige Park Road for about $1.5 million in 2019, Horst said. Since then it’s renovated the more than 100,000-square-foot building there — which previously served as a warehouse.
Horst, which employs about 90 people in East Hartford, recently closed operations in other states to double down on its East Hartford operation, the company said. The remodeled building now houses updated computer-assisted manufacturing equipment, and consolidates the work previously done in multiple locations.
“The Connecticut River Valley workforce is so highly skilled that it makes up for what was initially perceived as a lower cost of doing business in other places,” Horst CEO Scott Livingston said.
Livingston also alluded to difficulties recruiting new employees, an industry-wide problem in manufacturing.
COVID-19 exacerbated the long-running issue of open manufacturing jobs going unfilled as fewer young people enter the industry and older workers retire, with manufacturers shedding about 12,700 jobs in March and April 2020, and recovering just about 36% of the workforce since that time. In addition to ongoing training initiatives at the community college level, state officials are working on an advertising campaign to draw more young people into the industry.
“Recruiting skilled workers has always been a challenge,” Livingston said. “As in the past, we look to the state’s technical schools for continuing progress in development of the talent needed to support the advanced manufacturing industries, including aerospace, in our region.”
