Northwest Aerospace News June | July Issue No. 15 | Page 11

After 17 years, the company is still
growing and adding competencies. Lee
Human, president and CEO, said the
company ownership has remained the
same from the beginning. Each owner has
their own focus/competency and he feels
that’s why they’ve been able to maintain
harmony over the years. “We call ourselves
the ‘Three Amigos,’” Human said.
As the President and CEO, Human is the
salesman, Kent Baines is the scientist and
engineer, and Brad is focused on operations
and financial management. Human
added, “The sandbox is divided into three
spots.”
Human said that things haven’t always
been easy with a growing company, but
he is proud of the outcome. “A lot has
happened since we started the company;
we’ve (the owners) morphed into executives.
The staff does a lot better job than
we did when we were growing up,” he
said of the business, which now has 250
employees.
The company is headquartered in Seattle
with about 200 employees to accommodate
their main business functions,
accounting, human resources and engineering.
The Moses Lake location has 45
employees including an operations center,
two hangars, machine shops, flight testing
and more.
As with many aerospace companies
in the region, culture plays a big part.
Brad Briscoe, senior operations advisor
and partner said, “Lee, Kent and I have
always worked hard to build a culture
where people can work hard but also have
fun. We encourage cross training so that
the job doesn’t become boring and employees
can fill different roles as needed.
Testing can be a long and tedious job,
especially when travel is involved, but
the rewards of seeing the finished product
are unbelievable — particularly when you
know you were a part of it.”
“One of the biggest achievements is the culmination of
a lot of work and what it’s lead to — we’ve been able to
do amazing projects. For the first time this year, we won
a prime contract with Rolls-Royce … we are completely
responsible for everything from conceptual design, parts
manufacturing, installation, safety analysis, testing, reports,
and delivering the complete project,” he said.
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