LANSING — Saab’s investment in Northern Michigan is being used as an example for state officials looking to draw in new manufacturing operations.
Saab CEO Erik Smith says the company’s Grayling project could be the first of multiple in the region, potentially boosting the Michigan’s defense industry.
“I could see Saab doing things, you know, in other parts of our portfolio, here at Michigan too, in the not too distant future,” Smith said Thursday.
A panel at the Mackinac Policy Conference highlighted Saab’s investment as an example of Michigan’s growing role in the defense industry.
“We looked across the nation and when it came to the assets and the infrastructure and the workforce that Michigan provide, it was a bit of a no brainer at the end of the day,” Smith said.
Saab AB, which is separate from the now-defunct automaker, announced last year they would be investing $75 million into a munitions facility in Grayling.
Smith estimated the project, supported by $3.5 million in state funding, would support around one hundred jobs when completed. The facility is set to open in the middle of next year.
Smith says Saab has seen increased interest in the region from companies planning their future investments.
“We’ve had tremendous success since the announcement — people that have been all over the country that just want to come back to northern Michigan now that the jobs are going to be there,” he said.
Smith also says the Grayling facility could serve as a jumping-off point for other investments in the region — the project is only set to use 60 acres out of nearly 400 acres purchased.
“And if we do our job and things go the way that I expect it to, I think we will fully utilize that capacity over time,” he said.
Statewide leaders, like first-term US Senator Elissa Slotkin, touted the project as a sign of Michigan’s strength in defense manufacturing.
“The way that you become the hub for advanced manufacturing and the use of technology and manufacturing and iteration is by having more and more companies want to headquarter here, want to put their their forces here, want to put their effort in here,” she said. “So success begets success.”
Slotkin, a former national security official, says that Michigan needs to work harder to sell itself to the producers of the future.
“To be the leaders of the future, we need to be the leaders of new manufacturing techniques,” she said. “We can’t live in the past. We have to integrate all these new tools, and we need our next generation to help us do that.”
