The new head of a venerable Akron manufacturing business made perhaps his most public local appearance yet Monday, saying Meggitt Aircraft Braking Systems is growing and investing for the future.
“Meggitt is saying, ‘I want to grow the Akron facility,’ ” said Haluk “Luke” Durudogan, president of Meggitt Aircraft Braking Systems, headquartered in Akron. “Other owners didn’t believe it could grow.”
Durudogan, appointed to the top post 14 months ago, made his remarks in an interview following a ribbon-cutting at the Meggitt Akron complex off Massillon Road to celebrate a roughly $6 million investment in equipment and buildings.
Durudogan, 55, said millions more will be spent in the next few years at the 500-employee Akron operation that has roots in the old Goodyear Aerospace Corp. Employment in Akron and at sister facilities could grow by 200 in five years, he said.
“We believe that Akron is a place where it is worthwhile spending money,” Durudogan said. “Our sales are growing. There’s no more elegance to it than that.”
Meggitt PLC of England bought the facility, near the Akron Airdock, in 2007. Workers there make aircraft parts for military, commercial and other aircraft.
Durudogan, with 25 years in the aerospace industry, said he doesn’t know how many of the new jobs would go to Meggitt’s Akron facility, and how many would go to a Meggitt operation in Coventry, England.
Durudogan said sales across Aircraft Braking Systems — including facilities in England, Kentucky and Mexico — are expected to grow by 50 percent. Sales are now about $500 million annually.
“That’s what’s on the books” in terms of contracts, Durudogan said. “We continue to win [contracts]. There’s more business to get.”
Monday’s event in Akron included plant tours, brief comments by U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Akron, and Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic, as well as a barbecue lunch to which workers were invited.
“We know that manufacturing is a ticket to the middle class. …We see a better day still in the future, there will be more people in this operation,” Brown told hourly and salaried workers gathered on a Meggitt factory floor.
The union representing hourly workers — United Auto Workers Local 865 — credits Brown with helping to keep defense-related Meggitt jobs from going to Mexico.
“This is an unbelievably competitive world,” Plusquellic said. “We all have to work harder and work collaboratively together — both management and union and you’ve proven you can do it here.”
Durudogan said both politicians have been big supporters of the Akron Meggitt operations. Brown, he said, is both a company “mouthpiece and our ears” in Washington, D.C.
The upbeat outlook expressed Monday was a change from news in recent years coming out of the facility, including shifting jobs to a factory in Kentucky and nondefense related jobs to a factory in Mexico. The number of hourly union jobs is down to nearly 200 from more than 300 in 2007.
Company officials Monday showed off everything from refurbished equipment — including machining centers and furnaces used in the manufacturing process — to new overhead lighting to yards of new concrete flooring. “This is really like a new facility,” Durudogan said.
“We relaid out the facility,” Durudogan said. “This is a more efficient use of the facility. …The machines were getting old. We’re still refurbishing, buying new ones.”
The event, attended by Durudogan’s wife, Elizabeth, and the couple’s teenage daughter, Hayley, was somewhat of a departure for Meggitt PLC. The English company has traditionally been relatively quiet about its Akron facility.
Hourly workers are expected to begin negotiations in several months on a new labor contract. They say Durudogan is more hands-on than earlier company chiefs.
“I hope this [the investments in machinery and buildings] is a good sign for us, going into negotiations,” said John Jonke, a member of the United Auto Workers Local 856 bargaining committee.
Katie Byard can be reached at 330-996-3781 or kbyard@thebeaconjournal.com.