On January 14th to 16th, Frederic was the leading organiser of a learning expedition coming from Europe to participate to the SEAAF in Seattle. Few Aerospace companies visits were organized for this delegation with the assistance of the FACC PNW (companies including Boeing, Safran and Astronics). Here are Frederic’s words describing his experience in the region.
Considering early December 18 to participate to the SEAAF – Seattle European-American Air Forum, even if it was already late and sounded a bit crazy just few weeks ahead event, I asked some local relations and partners to work out a mini learning expedition to benefit as much as possible of the investment that such transatlantic mission require.
Let draw the outcome of it : such an fantastic mission, with benefits being beyond expectations ! Seattle is an amazing city and their ecosystem is rich of innovation and successful companies:
Microsoft, Google, Amazon … aside Boeing and their sub-suppliers.
This mission has however been clearly tuned around the aerospace ecosystem.
On Monday, we have been welcomed by the Dept of Commerce of Washington (incl. a wonderful view from their office over the Skyline and the Amazon Tower !) for a brief introduction and then drove to
– Boeing RENTON Facility ! Interesting to note that while Everett is generally the most visited plant, Renton is where the mass production of B737 NG and B737Max take place …. We have been warmly welcomed and had the chance to have with us several executives of the supply chain management and business development
Then we went to
– Astronics, Kirkland where the greeting was amazing as well, by local-living counterpart of French Astronic company PGA ; We got the chance to tour a quite busy plant with the operation director and continuous improvement leader
We finished the day with a great afterwork on Old Stove Brewing, near the famous Pike Place Market where we met other attendees of the SEAAF, incl Chamber of Commerce of Mobile / AL, Chamber of Commerce Seattle / WA, executives from Safran, Zodiac, Genesys, Tac, Daher, Magnix, BRPH, AvtechTye, …
On Tuesday, we attended the SEAAF, Seattle European-American Air Forum, organized by the French American Chamber of Commerce, Pacific NorthWest (FACC – PNW).
Hosted at the Museum of Flight (amazing collection of # aircraft and history of aerospace), the five panels covered a big picture of our industry :
- – Reshaping international Trade, covering Brexit, Tarifs and import taxes, ie political situation,
- – OEM 2030 with a vision of Airbus and Boeing,
- – Transportation revolution, covering electrification, inter-modality, eVTOLs with Magnix, etc
- – Global Supply Chain, with vision and perspectives from Latecoere, Liebherr, Esterline etc
- – Industry4.0, with insight of Armstrong by Daher, Boeing HorizonX etc
Beside the insights about our industry and topics, pauses and lunch offered an amazing opportunityto network with executives and C-Level people of our industry.
On Wednesday, we were hosted by Safran Inc., in the Safran Ventilation Systems / Safran Landing Systems premises and we got to see the kiting of the B787 main landing gears after a short description of the supply chain puzzle involving Bidos, Toronto, Velizy, Seattle and some sub- suppliers … Being from the Region Pays de la Loire, we’re proud to consider the local contribution with EBAC electronic cards being made by Tronico (85), and the electric brake motors being made by Meggitt Artus (49). This was also the occasion to evoke trends to incremental developments and new programs …. Everyone thinks and speaks obviously of the new coming NMA or B797 (except Boeing lol)
It was then time to fly back …
Thank you Jack, Jeremy, Amandine, Eric for this great suite of meeting as well as your hospitality Thank you Jean-Michel & Delphine (Safran), Ellie & Lawrence (Boeing) , Vincent and David (Astronics), Isabelle & Andrew (Choose Washington) with all your teams for welcoming us so warmly
And thanks to : Yaninne (Region Pays de Loire), John / Thierry (Sercel), Nicolas (Tronico), Ripudaman (enliveningtech) to have been part of this trip and mission ; so sorry for Olivier (Armormeca) who had to miss it !
As it started on 3rd Dec and the outcome, few weeks later :
I will from now on consider participating to such and similar events, and will continue to call others to attend jointly as we nurture ourselves from our respective contacts and expertise.
The local networking is in export even more important than on our territory, and those contacts can only be established with a certain confidence’s level in meeting in face to face and having a bit of time together. With that regard, the fact that we saw certain contact at multiple occasion, or had the chance to attract some at the afterwork event while they wouldn’t have had other occasion to meet was an incredible asset!
Post by Frederic Malleret
AeroWestDevelopment
Business Development & Strategy Aero & Defense , France & Europe –
Tel +33 788 173 137
