Success Story: Washington State
By Hope Belli Tinney, Washington SBDC
When WWII-era buildings at the Port of Moses Lake, Washington needed work in 2013, Sonico, the aircraft parts repair and maintenance business leasing those buildings, was told it would have to depart.
The simplest solution was to move to the I-5 interstate corridor near SeaTac – for close access to the aerospace customer base and a variety of lease options. But Sonico didn’t want to withdraw – or remove 45 good-paying jobs – from the town that had been its home for more than 30 years.
The problem, said company president W.B. “Bill” Perdue, was there was nowhere in Moses Lake to relocate. New construction had been on the drawing board for years, he said, but he’d been stymied in his efforts to find financing for a state-of-the-art Federal Aviation Administration-certified facility.
It took more than three years to work through that problem and others, but Sonico finally began construction of their new 28,000-square-foot building this summer, thanks in part to business advising from the Washington Small Business Development Center (SBDC). (more…)