Our move from Kernsersville is complete! In November, we celebrated the Grand Opening of our brand-new manufacturing facility in Greensboro with a ceremonial ribbon cutting, tours, and hors d'oeuvres.

Some of you may remember that we used to be in Greensboro many years ago – Summit Aviation Manufacturing was formed in 2014, when Greenwich AeroGroup retained the manufacturing side of then-owned Atlantic Aero upon its divestiture to Landmark Aviation. Our manufacturing division will gain an additional 19K square feet of space compared to its former location in Kernersville, which it had been in since 2008.

At the ribbon cutting, our Greensboro Director of Manufacturing Garrett Wishon thanked everyone for the many hours of hard work it took to make this move not only possible, but also successful. He was joined by Greenwich AeroGroup Chief Operating Officer and Summit Aviation Vice President and General Manager Ralph Kunz, and together they opened the doors to friends, family, customers, community members and the media.

Facility tours allowed our guests to see the breadth of our new 49k square-feet facility, which features an open floor plan we’ll take full advantage of by creating an optimal flow for lean manufacturing.

On that note, we’re also celebrating the arrival of our new 4 x 12-foot 5-Axis mill; we can’t wait to expand our capabilities further with the manufacturing of landing gear, leading edges, wing spars, etc. up to 12 feet long. More on that soon!

As we wrap up 2022, we’re grateful for many things including the opportunity to open the doors to our new facility with so much support. We’re extremely excited to hit the ground running in 2023 in Greensboro.

We’re excited to share that we recently received our fourth consecutive HIRE Vets Platinum Medallion Award from the U.S. Department of Labor. We’re honored and we value our veterans and the unique skillset they bring to our team.

U.S. Secretary of Labor Martin J. Walsh recognized us as one of the 835 recipients of the 2022 HIRE Vets Medallion Award during a virtual award ceremony presented by the U.S. Department of Labor on November 9, 2022.

The Honoring Investments in Recruiting and Employing American Military Veterans (HIRE Vets) Award Medallion Program implements the requirements of the HIRE Vets Act of 2017 (Public Law 115-31). It’s the only veteran-hiring award given at the federal level and recognizes a company or organization’s commitment to veteran hiring, retention and professional development.

“We are pleased to once again be recognized with this elite reward,” said Ralph Kunz, vice president and general manager for Summit Aviation. “Our veteran employees exemplify unique leadership, technical expertise and problem-solving abilities – those are highly valued skill sets in any workplace – particularly ours. We are humbled to work alongside our veterans each day.”

Recipients of the 2022 HIRE Vets Medallion Award meet rigorous employment and veteran integration assistance criteria, including veteran hiring and retention percentages; availability of veteran-specific resources; leadership programming for veterans; dedicated human resource efforts; pay compensation and tuition assistance programs for veterans. More than 1,400 employers have earned a HIRE Vets Medallion Award since 2018; we’re honored to be one of them for the past four years.

We currently employ approximately 75 veterans of the United States Armed Forces.