Next spring, ground will be broken on the first of three new factory buildings that will help transform Greater Richmond into a major venue for advanced manufacturing. In 2010, 2011 and finally, in 2014, state-of-the-art aerospace factories will go up. By then, Rolls-Royce, the venerable power systems and service provider plans to be turning out compact RB 282 jet engines for mid-sized business jets built by Dassault Aviation in France.

The London-based company with operations in 50 countries will also have on hand 940 acres more of land that can be eventually transformed into additional aerospace manufacturing capacity. Nearby rail lines and Interstates 95, 295 and 64 will whisk products throughout the U.S. and to the port of Hampton Roads for export. “In all, the three plants will cost $500 million and we’ll get jet engines with great performance, fuel efficiency and a smaller carbon footprint,” says Bob Stoddart, executive vice president Crosspointe, for Rolls-Royce.

Education outreach is a major part of the project. As envisioned, engineering professors and students from Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia will take part in a plethora of activities related to Rolls-Royce’s factories. For example, professors may take year-long sabbaticals while graduate students work hands-on research at the facility for their masters or doctoral papers. Their efforts will be coordinated at the new Commonwealth Center of Advanced Manufacturing (CCAM) that will be built on the Rolls-Royce land at Crosspointe Center.

Community colleges students in Greater Richmond will use the factory and the CCAM to help them win associate engineering degrees so they can transfer to four-year colleges. Others will take classes to help them participate in two year training programs Rolls-Royce plans to help develop its sophisticated, blue collar workforce. As many as 500 highly-skilled workers will be needed to handle the advanced machine tools and other devices used to make jet engines according to very precise tolerances.

Taken all together, the Rolls-Royce project will do much to raise the bar for advanced manufacturing in the Greater Richmond area. The region has some standouts that use such methods, including DuPont, Honeywell and Philip Morris USA, but the area has never quite bridged into aerospace.

What’s more, with such a long-term commitment, it is likely that the aerospace jobs will evolve into a major center of excellence for central Virginia. “We are already seeing a major uptick in serious interest from firms around the world involved in related manufacturing processes. This looks to be an exciting ride for our communities and workers,” said L. Gene Winter, Sr. Vice President for the Greater Richmond Partnership, Inc.

What could be a transformational event for the region got underway several years ago when Rolls-Royce was seeing a big acceleration in growth worldwide as the global economy expanded and transportation needs grew.

Making aircraft engines has been a major sector for Rolls-Royce whose famous “Merlin” in-line, piston engines powered such marquee-name fighter aircraft as Spitfires, Hurricanes and P-51 Mustangs. More recently, Rolls-Royce has supplied engines for Boeing 747, 757, 767 and eventually, the 787 “Dreamliner” commercial jets as well as a full range of Airbus products.

Growth for Rolls-Royce was doubling “and to satisfy it we had to grow capacity,” says Stoddart. Another factor was that the company was interested in “dollarizing” its asset base and production, or having it enumerated in dollars, rather than in pounds or Euros. Doing so would avoid profit margin squeezes brought on by fluctuations between currencies.

Rolls-Royce also was negotiating a contract with Dassault Aviation which is planning a “super, mid-sized” version of its popular Falcon business jets. While relatively small, the Dassault jet, dubbed the “7X” needs jet engines capable of providing 10,000 pounds of thrust reliably. Rolls-Royce was eventually selected in June 2007.

Taken together, these factors added up to Rolls-Royce putting a production facility in the U.S. The firm’s North American headquarters, located in Reston in Northern Virginia, started scouring eight states for a site for its first greenfield plant, says Stoddart. To select spots, the company set up matrices of points, such as available workforce and land, university research, taxes, labor laws, state and local incentives, logistics, convenient international air travel and quality of life. “We looked at places like North and South Carolina, Georgia, Ohio and Indiana, among others and Virginia came up the winner when we put all the points together,” Stoddart says.

Working out the deal were the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, Virginia’s Gateway Region, and Prince George County, the community college system, Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia. All came up with a cohesive program and the Rolls-Royce project was announced about a year ago. The initial state incentive package is $10.7 million with another $35 million possible if performance tests are met.

This summer, ground clearing was begun for a 60-acre parcel that will house the first of three production facilities. The first, to be completed by 2010, will make fan disks for gas turbine jet engines. A second, due in 2011, will make “blisks” which are engine fan blades and disks made together as one entity. Stoddart notes that “blisks” are a high technology item for jet engines that provide more flexibility and strength, used, for example, in the Joint Strike Fighter. The final plant will assemble engines and will be running by 2014.

The three facilities will need up to 550 workers, about 400 of which will involve metal machining. A labor survey showed that there were available, experienced workers within a 50-mile radius of the plant site, but Stoddart says that Rolls-Royce will implement a two-year-long training program for employees.

That’s where Virginia’s academic community comes in. Besides the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing, the agreement calls for U.Va. to establish a Center for Aerospace Propulsion Systems. Also, from 2009 to 2014, the program will establish three chaired professorships at U.Va.; three at U.Va’s undergraduate McIntire School of Commerce; and three at Virginia Tech. Internships will be established to allow students to work at the Prince George facility or with Rolls-Royce worldwide.

“Virginia Tech has a well established reputation in aerospace,” says Chris Hall, dean of the school’s aerospace engineering department. “The alliance with Rolls-Royce will create jobs, endow professorships and internships.” He says that his department, along with Tech’s department of engineering science and mechanics, will share the Rolls-Royce project along with U.VA, which whom Hall says his school has “good rapport.” For example, he says that the two universities are working on a project to launch a supersonic ram jet rocket at NASA’s Wallops Island base in 2010.

While the universities’ endeavors will concentrate on research, the Virginia Community College System will help on developing a labor force. “We got involved in this project very early,” says Peter Blake, the system’s vice chancellor for workforce development services. Among their activities are helping John Tyler Community College develop special curriculum to train future Rolls-Royce workers. The school also hopes to launch a new engineering program linked directly to the jet engine facility. Altria, a major Richmond-area company, has dedicated $400,000 in funding for the program.

Besides upgrading its associate degree program in aerospace engineering and providing courses to help the company train a labor force, the community college system will reach deeply into the area’s high schools. They want to identify talented students who might be oriented towards building jet engines. “Rolls-Royce is a very dynamic company to work with and they offer a very interesting international perspective,” says Blake.

“Roll-Royce is a very significant addition,” says Michael Scritchfield, director for manufacturing technical programs at the Community College Workforce Alliance. “We have joined with them to do all kinds of skills recruiting, screening and training.”

One other area of overlap brought on with coming factories, says Stoddart, is expanding Greater Richmond’s logistics base. The general area of the Crosspointe Center is filled with warehouses, trucking firms and cargo staging areas that take advantage of Richmond’s geographic position halfway up the East Coast and good Interstate and rail access. Stoddart says that the Rolls-Royce site will have areas available for more logistics development.

Besides logistics companies, the Rolls-Royce property also could house other, non-competing advanced manufacturing facilities, Stoddart says. At least six other industrial sites are available on the property. “It’s a model we’ve used in the United Kingdom and in Germany,” he says.

The current financial market turmoil and economic downturn is a concern for Rolls-Royce which is evaluating its markets around the world. But Stoddart says the first engine production won't be until 2014 by which time today's uncertainty may be just an unpleasant memory. And Greater Richmond will have grown its footprint as a major center for advanced manufacturing.