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Snohomish County business
7E7 is expected to bring jobs, but how many to land here?

By Jane Hodges
Times Snohomish County bureau

ELAINE THOMPSON / AP, 2003 An interior specialist for Boeing talks about the interior design of the new Boeing 7E7 at the company's design center in Renton last year, with a model of the proposed jet in the foreground.

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The state's economic-development agency has reported that Boeing's new 7E7 jetliner will create 8,000 to 24,000 jobs by the end of this decade. It's a vast range that includes Boeing workers, suppliers to Boeing and unrelated companies buoyed by business from aerospace workers.

But how many of those jobs will land in Snohomish County is harder to quantify.

Mark Klender, a Deloitte Consulting managing partner who worked on the state's research, said he couldn't separate the numbers into county-level data but said the bulk of the jobs will be in the Puget Sound region.

Others estimated specific benefits to the county, and they're optimistic.

Jerilee Mosier, the vice president for work-force development at Edmonds Community College, predicted 75 percent of the jobs — 6,000 to 18,000 — will be in Snohomish County.

"I really think the suppliers are going to want to be based very close to the plant," Mosier said.

John Monroe, a former Boeing 777 executive who leads 7E7 efforts for the Snohomish County Economic Development Council, said the news supports the type of employment he and council President Deborah Knutson have expected. He said he is working with three Boeing direct suppliers who are considering moving a total of 150 workers to the county.

Many job watchers, however, say it's still too early to tell where the jobs will land because more of the manufacturing of the 7E7 will be outsourced compared with previous jetliners.

Ken Hudson, the business agent for International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 32 — the union that handles cargo work at the Port of Everett — believes the work means more container ships, either from Boeing or Boeing suppliers.
 
"We're hoping, and we think, based upon what we're hearing, that we'll increase our numbers here," Hudson said.

The union has 25 registered members; it used to have more than twice that during better economic times, when Boeing cargo — as well as ships of logs, alumina and other products — arrived more often.

The state Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development (CTED) is working to locate property for one element of the 7E7 manufacturing program that will definitely be here: a $10 million, 40,000-square-foot training facility within a 10- minute drive of Boeing's Everett plant. Boeing will use the facility, promised in the state's 2003 legislation package, exclusively for five years.

More than a dozen property owners, real-estate developers and other organizations submitted 21 informal proposals for state consideration by the mid-May deadline, said Robin Pollard, the CTED's 7E7 project manager.

On Friday, CTED officials met with representatives from Everett and Edmonds community colleges about using the Applied Technology Training Center, a 28,000-square-foot building on Seaway Boulevard owned by the Everett college but shared by both campuses.

Michael Kerns, the vice president of administration at Everett CC, said the college has been promoting the Applied Technology Training Center as well as roughly 40,000 square feet of building space the college owns at Paine Field. "We want to work with the state," Kerns said.

Jane Hodges: 425-745-7813 or jhodges@seattletimes.com