WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE — Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, said Friday new jobs could begin moving to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base within the next few months after a new mission was awarded to the base.
The mission, formally called the “F-35 Lightening II Hybrid Product Support Integrator” is described in a written statement from the Air Force as “integrated support across the supply chain, maintenance, sustainment engineering, logistics information technology and training disciplines.”
With the new mission will be 400 new, good paying jobs to support the F-35. Portman said WPAFB won the competition for the new mission through a variety of strengths, including other missions already on base that compliment the work to support the F-35.
“They like the synergies with the Air Force Research Lab and also the intelligence part of it, NASIC, and also Materiel Command,” Portman said.
Other factors include the low cost of doing business here and ability to attract qualified workers to the region.
“People like being here,” Portman said, “It was a good victory for the base and it’s going to fill out a part of the base for the foreseeable future because the F-35 is going to be here for a long time.”
One other reason why WPAFB was attractive for this new mission, according to Portman, is that there is ready-made space for some of the employees without any new construction.
Still, Portman said there could be some facilities work eventually.
“They do want to construct some things and do some work on the base but I would guess in the next few months we’ll begin to see some of these functions that are done elsewhere,” Portman said.
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