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Boeing’s Phantom Works opening high-tech facility here

BY SCOTT SHUMAKER

Tribune Staff Writer

Aerospace and defense giant Boeing is expanding its footprint in Mesa with a new 155,000-squarefoot, $150 million factory at McDowell and Greenfield Roads to build parts for future combat aircraft. Company executives and city officials cut the ribbon Sept. 12 on the Advanced Composite Fabrication Center, which will be a classified facility operated by Phantom Works, the division of Boeing that develops prototype aircraft based on the latest science. Its “classified” status means people entering the facility will require a security clearance.

Boeing spokeswoman Michelle Whaley said the factory is the first in a series of new high-tech factories planned throughout the country and “will place Mesa at the heart of Boeing’s future production strategy.” The Phantom Works facility builds on Boeing’s 40-year history in the city.

The company is Mesa’s third-largest employer and currently assembles the Apache and Little Bird attack helicopters in the city.

Mesa’s attack-helicopter industry is going strong, as U.S. ally Poland requested in early September the purchase of 96 Apaches to replace its current helicopter fleet. Whaley said the new order would add to “an already healthy backlog” of production.

Unlike Mesa’s Apache fabrication center, the new Phantom Works facility to the west won’t be assembling finished aircraft; instead it will produce components like aircraft skins and subassemblies that will go elsewhere for final assembly.

So while no secret prototype aircraft will be buzzing around the skies of Mesa, the Phantom Works facility will play a role in creating the next generation of warplanes. Boeing Defense, Space & Security PresiBreaking ground for Boeing’s new factory are, from left, Kathleen Jollivette, vice-president of the corporation’s attack-helicopters program; Mesa Mayor John Giles; Ted Colbert, president and CEO of Boeing Defense, Space and Security; and Steve Nordlund, vice-president and general manager of Boeing Phantom Works. (Courtesy Boeing)

dent Ted Colbert said the latest ideas from Boeing’s brains will “become real” at the Mesa facility, taking their first steps from digital designs to physical machines.

Colbert said the factory is “about taking advantage of the next generation of technology,” and it will leverage tools like virtual reality, artificial intelligence and additive manufacturing aka 3D printing to produce specialty parts made from advanced materials.

The high-tech factory will add about 150 jobs to Boeing’s more than 4,600-person workforce in Mesa.

Current Boeing quality engineer Jamey Dunn, who has worked at Boeing’s Mesa site for 27 years, will work at the new facility, and he’s excited about it.

“It’s incredible to be on the cusp of new technology and see what’s coming next,”

Boeing’s new factory will require a security clearance to enter the grounds. (Special to the Dunn said.

The company couldn’t give details on what exactly the facility will make because much of it is classified for national security reasons.

Also, the factory is designed to adapt to future needs the company has based on technology, contracts and orders. Boeing’s sneak peek for local officials and media was a rare opportunity to see the inside of the Phantom Works workshop before it permanently closes to the public when it goes into operation this fall.

In remarks before the ribbon-cutting, Giles thanked Boeing not just for its economic impact on the town but also the “human capital” the company brings, elevating the city with “community-oriented people.” Huge U.S. flags hung on the walls of the cavernous interior lined with cables and copper pipes and peppered with computers, cranes and other equipment. On the tour of the soon-to-be classified space, Boeing employees showed off a two-story, two-armed machine that can make precision cuts with either a 60,000 psi water jet or a laser.

The Tribune asked Mayor John Giles what he thought of the facility after emerging from a tour with other city officials.

“I could tell you but I might have to kill you,” Giles joked before adding, “Clearly, a lot of amazing things are going to happen here.”

A spokeswoman for Boeing said at the event that the company’s Apache factory will be an important “feeder pool” for workers at the Phantom Works facility.

A good way to get a foot in the door in the Apache operation, the company said, is to participate in one of the two-week “boot camps” Maricopa Community Colleges offers in partnership with Boeing.

The idea of the camps is to give people without prior experience the basic skills needed for an entry level job with Boeing as a wire harness or composite technician. 

Tech giant Insight settling into new Chandler digs

BY KEN SAIN

Managing Editor

Glynis Bryan, the chief financial officer for tech giant Insight, was not a fan of working from home before the pandemic. “I’m going to tell you another secret,” Bryan said. “I wanted all my teammates in the office before the pandemic hit. Insight had a flexible work policy that says whatever your managers determine is what you can exercise in terms of flexibility in working in the office or working remotely.

“And I told my teammates that this manager chooses to have you in the office prepandemic.”

And then the pandemic happened in 2020 and changed everything, including the plans for Insight’s new world headquarters off Gilbert Road, between Germann and Queen Creek in Chandler. The company completed its move from Tempe this summer.

“We bought the building in 2019, we struck a deal to sell our existing buildings in Tempe and live there for a year, but before we were going to move COVID intervened and kind of throw everything into the air,” Bryan said.

“We were going to have very dense office cubes. However, we made a decision that we’re going to go back and we’re going to actually do six feet of separation because you never know when another pandemic will hit.” Bryan said company officials wanted to move out of two buildings they were using for their corporate headquarters in Tempe into one building.

They chose Chandler for a variety reasons, including ease for their workers to get here and because many of the tech companies they work with have offices in Chandler.

She also said Chandler has the educated workforce her company needs to fill its jobs.

The building the company moved into was originally designed to be three stories.

Insight changed that, making it a twostory building because it wanted to bring as many people together as it could inThe main lobby atrium of Insight’s new headquarters in Chandler offers visitors a sparkling

introduction to the company. (David Minton/Staff Photographer)

stead of keeping them apart.

Brothers Eric and Tim Crown started Insight in their Tempe garage in 1988. Eric had written a business plan for an assignment at Arizona State University’s business school. He received a C-.

Not deterred, he decided to go ahead with that business and in the first eight years he earned $1 billion. Insight has changed its business model a few times from those early days.

“We are on a journey to become a leading solutions integrator, not systems integrator, but solutions integrator,” Bryan said. “When we talk about being a leading solutions integrator that is marrying the product base, that we have hardware and software products, across the spectrum of all hardware and all software, with services that we wrap around to actually create solutions for our clients.”

Most of Insight’s customers are Fortune 500 companies. The company operates in 20 countries around the world and employs about 12,000 people globally. In Arizona, they employ 1,600. The Chandler office is home base for 1,100 of those employees.

The new Chandler headquarters has most of the features that tech employees have come to expect, including its own cafeteria, coffee bar, fitness center, private rooms for new moms to breast feed their children and a health clinic. Each work area has a common space where workers

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can collaborate with one another.

Bryan said Insight has earned a reputation for being a great company to work for.

“One of the things that we’re really proud of is the fact that at Insight, we have won a series of awards for the culture that we have here,” Bryan said. “We’re best places to work in almost every country in which we exist. It’s really a tribute to the culture that we’ve created here at Insight, through the values that we have, our purpose statement and the fact that we live those values every day.”

Bryan said the company wants to become part of Chandler. Officials plan on hosting community events, suggesting the Chamber of Commerce might be interested in hosting something in its 300-seat Crown Room. But that will have to wait until they finish upgrading the building.

“We’re going to maybe open up the facility to some Chandler-type functions,” Bryan said. “We just want to, everything’s not quite perfect yet.”

Information: insight.com 

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