Northwest Aerospace News February | March Issue No. 13 | Page 46

THE SERVICES ARE OFFERED THROUGH A VARIETY OF LOCATIONS. o United Kingdom o Mukilteo, Washington, USA o France o St. Louis, Missouri , USA o Portugal o Charleston, South Carolina, USA o China o Brazil o Australia Headquarters, Mukilteo, Washington: Design, engineering, production/prototyping, equipment assembly campus Other design center locations: to keep equipment running: o Charleston, South Carolina o Brazil o United Kingdom o St. Louis, Missouri o Australia o France o China o Portugal T odd Rudberg, director of Automated Fiber Placement (AFP) at Electroimpact, graduated from University of Washington with a physics degree. He said he, “walked out of the door at UW and into the door at Electroimpact,” and has been there ever since. His group deals in fiber placement lamination using giant 3D carbon fiber printers. They create 777X wing skins and spars, including assembly after curing. He feels that there is tremendous potential in this area, although they’ve been working on it since 2004. Rudberg said, “We took on the AFP business and felt like an underdog for so many years; but being a big part of the strategy for having a business case has been super interest- ing — the progress is coming quickly now. It is engaging. This is an area that is far from stagnant.” He added that they are now leaders in this area, and he has over 100 engineers in his department, “We are in a desirable group within EI; we are tight-knit.” 46 Support centers – locations near or inside a customer facility NORTHWEST AEROSPACE NEWS