🔒Sikorsky’s $10.9B CH-53K contract sparks hiring, investment and renewed optimism across CT’s aerospace sector

The layup room is the heart of operations at TIGHITCO’s Berlin facility. Inside the aerospace manufacturer’s clean room, gowned and gloved employees painstakingly handcraft precision aircraft parts from a material known as composite. “We ​have ​quite ​a ​few ​people ​that ​have ​been here ​for 10 ​months ​or ​less ​and are ​working ​on ​building ​up ​their ​experience,” said supervisor Peter Peers. Adhesive-infused fabric is laser-cut to exact specifications for each part. Workers then carefully layer hundreds of fabric sheets over molds, quickly and accurately, to create parts that are both lighter and stronger than metal. “The people that excel the most are people that have experience with either wrapping cars or tinting windows, some type of general home improvement, or even things of a crafty nature, like a seamstress or sewing skills,” Peers said. It takes three months to train a new worker on this process, and lately that training has been an all-hands effort, according to TIGHITCO General Manager Shawn Hawks. “We’ve probably grown by 30% in layup,” he said. “And a lot of it is related to getting prepared for the CH-53K.” TIGHITCO has long served as a key supplier to helicopter maker Sikorsky, providing components for the CH-53K King Stallion heavy-lift helicopter, which is designed to transport troops, vehicles and heavy equipment for the U.S. military. The composite parts produced in the layup room will become part of the nose cone assemblies, personnel doors and escape hatches for the massive aircraft. In September, Stratford-based Sikorsky — a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin — secured a $10.9 billion multiyear contract to build up to 99 CH-53K helicopters for the U.S. military. The agreement ensures final assembly work on the helicopter will continue in Stratford through 2033.

Rich Benton, vice president and general manager at Sikorsky, told the Hartford Business Journal the new contract is “monumental.” “Anytime ​you ​get ​the ​first ​multi​year ​on ​a ​program,” he said, “you ​work ​a ​long ​time ​through ​the ​development, you ​prepare ​for ​it, ​you ​tool ​up ​for ​it.” And that preparation isn’t just going on in Stratford. It also involves 42 major supply chain companies in the state like TIGHITCO, as well as the hundreds of smaller suppliers that work with them.

New stability

Hawks said the hiring push in Berlin was difficult at first, given how specialized the work is, but TIGHITCO has since learned how to attract the right talent. “One of the issues we had was people just don’t know what composites are,” he said. “That’s been a journey for us, but I think we’ve gotten really good at it.” The company has added a weekend shift to provide more flexibility for employees, and has also hired some part-time workers — something that, Hawks said, wasn’t even considered in the industry a decade ago. A beefed-up training plan and a clear career ladder were also part of the hiring strategy, as was raising the pay range three times in two years. Improving hiring and expanding the workforce aren’t the only ripple effects of Sikorsky’s new multiyear contract, however. “It creates stability, from Sikorsky all the way down to the raw materials,” Hawks said.

TIGHITCO, he explained, will be able to plan further ahead on costs and manage project risks more strategically — for example, by purchasing raw materials when prices are lower, or sourcing components with longer lead times. That, in turn, helps insulate Sikorsky from potential supply chain disruptions. It also allows for longer-term collaborative relationships among suppliers. TIGHITCO, for instance, plans to add a second layup room to expand capacity. To make room for it, the company expects to outsource some chemical-processing work currently performed on its Berlin shop floor to another firm. “You can spend a little more on investment for research and development, you have the ability to support funding innovation and breakthroughs,” Hawks said. “That gets us to the future.”

Overcoming challenges

Such optimism has been hard to come by in Connecticut’s aerospace supply chain in recent years. The sector has faced pandemic-related shutdowns, ongoing workforce shortages and turbulence tied to major issues at Boeing, one of the world’s largest original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Suppliers say they have weathered closures, consolidation, rising raw material costs, and persistent challenges attracting skilled talent. “A small machine shop can hold up an entire aircraft,” said Justin Wolfanger, president of Triumph Systems, which has 700 employees in West Hartford and Windsor. The company makes engine controls, electronics, mechanical and hydraulic systems for Sikorsky and others, and is also a key supplier on the CH-53K program. Wolfanger was speaking at a recent manufacturing event hosted by the Connecticut Business & Industry Association. Like many larger suppliers in Connecticut’s aerospace ecosystem, Triumph has benefited from private equity backing. Earlier this year, the company was acquired in a $3 billion deal by Warburg Pincus and Berkshire Partners. Wolfanger said that investment has enabled Triumph to continue making strategic improvements it began pursuing during the pandemic — including about $10 million in internal R&D funding aimed at addressing supply chain challenges. In an era of inflation and soaring material costs, he said, neither the Pentagon nor major OEMs fully appreciated the pressures facing suppliers in recent years — but that’s beginning to change. “I’m finally having conversations with some large OEMs that are like, ‘no, we don’t want you going out of business,’” he said. Another challenge has surfaced further down Connecticut’s “aerospace alley,” which for generations has relied on small, family-run machine shops — many with just a handful of employees producing custom, one-off parts. Those businesses were among the hardest hit by pandemic shutdowns, said Brian Montanari, president and CEO of Glastonbury-based HABCO Industries, a longtime Sikorsky supplier. “Frankly, a lot of those companies we used to deal with are no longer in business,” he said. To replace that lost capacity, HABCO and others have ramped up in-house training programs and partnered with the state to invest in new equipment. The company’s big focus was “how do we bring that in-house, how do we have more control over it?” Montanari said. It’s a problem still confronting Mike Scotto, vice president of business development at Colchester-based Alpha Q, which builds assemblies for the transmission, gearbox and tail rotors on several Sikorsky helicopters. One of Alpha Q’s assemblies is nearly finished, but production has been delayed while the company waits 30 weeks for two specialized parts available from only one supplier. “I’m holding up hundreds of thousands of dollars of inventory that customers are depending on. It’s not good,” Scotto said. Issues like these are what many suppliers hope to solve under the stability of Sikorsky’s new multiyear CH-53K contract — whether by diversifying their vendor base, bringing special processes in-house, or having the confidence to order early and in bulk. At TIGHITCO, Hawks, the GM, remains optimistic about the future of Connecticut’s often-stressed supply chain. “All of those opportunities roll down, and the companies that use that opportunity wisely will come out better, stronger, more efficient at the end,” he said.