Explosive sales growth in its high temperature composites for the aircraft industry could fuel hundreds of new jobs at Renegade Materials Corp. in Springboro near Dayton.
Laura Gray, Renegade's director of sales and marketing, says improvements in manufacturing have reduced the cost of making the high-tech, lightweight composites Renegade produces that replace heavier metal parts on both military and commercial aircraft.
Renegade will begin filling multi-million dollar orders for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program in the next several months.
"As the materials become more broadly used by the military, the commercial companies become more confident in the product," says Gray.
An expected ramp-up in sales to commercial aviation customers could add as many as 160 new jobs over the next five years at Renegade. The company currently employs 15 at its $5-million dollar manufacturing facility.
The company has hired four new employees, all former auto workers, this year through the Dayton Development Coalition and the Montgomery County Job Center. Many of its future employees could also be hired through a similar process, says Gray.
"We are working with the Montgomery County Job Center to find and re-train displaced auto workers," she says.
Opened in 2008, Renegade specializes in a unique manufacturing process for high temperature composite materials that reduces many of the toxic chemicals and volatile organic compounds that made it so expensive in the past. Owners Robert Gray and Eric Collins have spent 30 years in the aerospace industry.
Source: Laura Gray, Renegade Materials
Writer: Val Prevish