Northwest Aerospace News February | March Issue No. 13 | Page 42

Electroimpact AFP Spar lamination cell. Tasked with building the world’s largest continuous spar, this machine can contour
around the complex geometry of the spar at extremely high speeds, while maintaining accurate fiber placement.
H
arrison Scarborough, 30, head
designer at Electroimpact, spends
very little time at his desk. At any
given moment he may be working in a
group, on-site at the customer loca-
tion — recently at Boeing in Everett
— installing, testing, and training on a
piece of equipment he has designed for
the wing assembly on the 777X.
He said that he only spends 30 percent
of his time at his desk. The rest, even
when back on the Electroimpact cam-
pus, is spent in a compartmentalized
style, “I spend three months designing,
three-months testing, three months
installing, and then I am running more
tests and working on final configura-
tion at the customer site.”
42
NORTHWEST AEROSPACE NEWS
Scarborough works at what was de-
signed as an “engineers’ company” by
founder Peter Zieve, 65, in 1986. He’s
been at the company for almost four
years, since earning his master’s in
mechanical engineering from Wash-
ington State University.
He said that he wanted to work at
Electroimpact, “because of its unique
structure.” For those that haven’t seen
an Electroimpact product, it’s hard to
miss. In a tour of an aerospace OEM
facility, you may see larger-than-life
aircraft tooling like a massive jig or
wing panel assembly tool which can
suspend entire wing structures in the
air.
Electroimpact, headquartered in Mukil-
teo, Washington, is privately held and
proud of it. Founded on the concept of
operating in a decentralized environ-
ment, called a holacracy, the engineers
at Electroimpact serve as the salespeo-
ple, designers, engineers, installers, and
project managers.
Now with over 330 engineers, the com-
pany also employs 50 machinists, in-
spectors, and planners; 45 technicians;
two welders; seven electricians and 10
office support staff in the U.S. There
are over 600 employees worldwide, and
73 percent are engineers, including all
the senior leadership.