AEROSPACE
The Aerospace Museum of California , with its 40 historic aircrafts on its 4-acre site in Sacramento , recently hosted California Aerospace Day .
and it was kind of obvious that you had to come out here if you really wanted to do cutting-edge aerospace and engineering ,” says Samantha Edgington , a systems architect based in Palo Alto for Lockheed Martin .
At some point , though , the industry got away from Sacramento . Michelle Willard , chief public affairs officer for the Greater Sacramento Economic Council , says the region only has about 1,000 jobs in aerospace today . “ The industry peaked in the 1960s in Sacramento and then left the region once the Cold War ended ,” she says .
Other factors fueled the transition , too . Powell says JP Aerospace functioned as a traditional company through 1985 , raising venture capital and having employees . The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster that killed seven crew members in January 1986 , including teacher Christa McAuliffe , helped spur a shift for both the industry and Powell ’ s company .
In more recent years , Aerojet Rocketdyne moved much of its operations from Rancho Cordova to Huntsville , Alabama . While the company declined an interview request for this article , CBS News reported in 2017 that the company claimed the relocation would save it $ 85 million . The company maintains a small presence in Rancho Cordova .
“ The Aerojet site gets a lot of looks from high-end companies ,” says Barry
Broome , president and CEO of GSEC . “ The problem is Aerojet is not really ready to do a real estate deal over there . So there ’ s enough infrastructure and assets at Aerojet in Rancho where there ’ s a possibility we could land a Space X or a Blue Origin , but the company controls the real estate and hasn ’ t been willing to be that aggressive .”
A future in Sacramento
Dean Peckham , executive director of the Sacramento Valley Manufacturing Alliance , says his nonprofit has about 50 member companies , but that only two of them are in aerospace . He hesitates when asked if the Sacramento area can be competitive again for aerospace manu-
44 comstocksmag . com | September 2022