Northwest Aerospace News August | September 2020 | Page 34

Lynnwood also is the largest single location within the Aerospace & Electronics division, with some 900 employees. The rest of the division’s 2,300 workers are at sites including Burbank, California; Chandler, Arizona; Elyria, Ohio; West Caldwell, New Jersey; Fort Walton Beach, Florida; Lyon, France and Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Founders’ Vision Crane was founded in 1855 as a brass and bell foundry and while it’s no longer a family-owned company, executives still follow the founders’ guiding principles, said Hilary King, the vice president and general manager for the Sensing and Power Systems unit. Founder R.T. Crane in the 19th century said he was resolved to conduct his business in the strictest honesty and fairness. He committed to dealing fairly and justly with customers, competitors and employees. King said, “that foundation statement is pervasive throughout our culture” – and it’s a big part of what lured her to work at Crane in 2018 after a career spent at larger manufacturers including Honeywell and GE Aviation. Now in the 21st century, “Our CEO commends people for ‘Being Crane,’” she said. The company stresses “impeccable customer service” and delivering high quality, Mundinger said. His unit has never had a space product fail during a mission, he said, even on power converters it has built for probes like New Horizons. The probe flew past Pluto in 2015, executed a flyby of a body in the Kuiper Belt on the Solar System’s edge in 2019 and is currently heading away from the Sun at 52,000 mph, looking for more objects to observe on its way to deep space. The probe, launched in 2006, has enough power to remain operational into the 2030s, according to NASA. 34 NORTHWEST AEROSPACE NEWS