The HU-25 Product line will be getting a new home across the field. But as with anything, not everyone is happy about it.

From The Daily Advance
Dailyadvance.com
By REGGIE PONDER
Staff Writer

Friday, April 03, 2009

U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., has pledged to find out why the Coast Guard recently decided to change the maintenance support contract at its base in Elizabeth City.

Two workers at Lear Siegler Services Inc., who asked to remain unidentified, told The Daily Advance this week that the company was laying off 40 to 50 workers in the wake of a contract change.

They said the Coast Guard had announced at the beginning of March that it was awarding a two-year maintenance contract to Lear Siegler, but later pulled part of the contract and awarded it to DRS Technologies, an aircraft maintenance company located next to the base and the anchor tenant of the new airport industrial park. One of the workers said the contract had been re-bid three times.

Butterfield, whose 1st Congressional District includes the Coast Guard base, said his office has already contacted the Coast Guard to get more information about the decision.

“I want to gather and understand all the facts,” Butterfield said.

The LSI office in Elizabeth City said staff could not comment.

The corporate communications office of URS Corp., the parent company of LSI, has not responded to e-mail messages and repeated telephone calls from The Daily Advance.

The Coast Guard Aviation Logistics Center released the following statement:

“The Coast Guard Aviation Logistics Center (ALC) has made a strategic business decision in the way it is providing maintenance support for some of our aircraft platforms. It is our belief that this strategy will allow the ALC to provide more effective support to our customers. We have many contracts with numerous contractors that provide important support services to ALC.

“The implementation of this strategy involves the movement of some existing aircraft support from our existing facilities to a local contractor’s facility and this may affect the jobs of some contractor positions; overall we expect no reductions to the work force.”

Capt. Ed Gibbons, who oversees the Coast Guard ALC, reiterated that overall, no jobs would be lost by the transfer of some maintenance work from Lear to DRS.

He said those who may have lost jobs with Lear because of the change might gain employment with DRS, but he acknowledged that there was no guarantee of that happening.

“I do not envision the (overall) work force dropping,” Gibbons said. “Actually, it represents new work.”

He said the base simply has run out hangar space for new work. He said with several HC-144 aircraft scheduled to arrive for maintenance by this summer, the ALC had to look elsewhere for someone to handle the work. And DRS, which recently expanded its capability to perform aircraft maintenance, was the logical choice since it is adjacent to the base, he said.

“Space is a big deal,” Gibbons said.

The contract change could involve as many as 90 workers — 30 to 40 civil service workers and 40 to 50 LSI employees, the LSI workers told the newspaper.

LSI is expected to continue working on helicopters and to employ some 250 people in Elizabeth City. The contracts shifted to DRS apparently involve fixed-wing aircraft.

Lear Siegler, headquartered in Fort Rucker, Ala., provides maintenance services to large fleets of aircraft. It also provides training services to the U.S. military and international customers.

DRS Technologies, headquartered in Parsippany, N.J, is a subsidiary of Finmeccanica S.p.A.