Behind Astronautics Corporation: Oak Creek's Aerospace Industry

OAK CREEK, WI — Soon, Oak Creek will become a high-tech aerospace manufacturing hub. The process isn't happening overnight, but piece-by-piece over the next six months, Astronautics Corporation of America will settle nearly every part of their Wisconsin operation into Oak Creek.

The company will undertake some of the final steps of a big move over the next few months in a process that will bring manufacturing from Milwaukee to Oak Creek. The process will likely be finalized in spring of 2022, according to Shawn Weilep, the relocation manager for the Oak Creek facility, and with it will come new jobs and industry.

The title of "aerospace manufacturing hub" is one people might typically associate with Seattle, and it's true that the Pacific Northwest has long had a claim to fame with its aerospace industry. Wisconsin has a part in it too, though, and this lesser-known aerospace company will soon make Oak Creek a bigger player in it all — engineering, manufacturing; the whole company will soon be settled here.

Astronautics isn't new to the region, though. It was founded in Milwaukee in 1959. One of the first contracts that the company got was to calculate burns for U.S. lunar missions, hence the name Astronautics. The private group mostly focuses on contracts for flight equipment now.

Since 2019, Astronautics has been moving engineering, manufacturing and other elements of the business into Oak Creek. At present, manufacturing is done at a facility in Milwaukee — it's one of the last pieces of the puzzle with the move.

Over the next few months, likely until about March, machines and equipment from the Milwaukee facility will make their way to Oak Creek, according to Shawn Weilep. Production won't stop through that move, though.

Each piece of the assembly line will be put to use then hurried over to the Oak Creek facility. That process will continue down the line until every piece of the puzzle lands in Oak Creek, Weilep said. During that time, products will continue to make their way through each part of the manufacturing process.

After the process is complete, Oak Creek will be the home of Astronautics' headquarters, as well as the home of its manufacturing. With that, skilled engineering and manufacturing jobs will all be located under one roof in Oak Creek.

"Astronautics is proud to be co-locating its Milwaukee-area facilities into our new Oak Creek HQ with a skilled aerospace and defense workforce that designs and manufactures innovative, high-tech products," said Mary Loomis, Astronautics' director of communications.

The company is currently looking for about 38 people to fill roles, according to Sherry Jones, Astronautics' director of human resources. With the move, more roles such as repair and production techs may become available.

Many current employees are relocating to Oak Creek to stick with the company as it moves from Milwaukee. Other roles, though, will rely on talent pools such as Oak Creek's MATC campus, Jones added. Altogether, Astronautics employs 358 people.

But What Do They Make?

Odds are that if you've flown a jet in the past 20 years, mainly Boeing 787's or 777's, you may have flown alongside high-tech equipment that was made by Astronautics. One of the company's most impactful products was its electronic flight bag, Loomis told Patch.

In the past, pilots used to have to carry their checklists, information about flights and procedures for planes as physical documents in a flight bag, Loomis said. Around 2003, though, Astronautics became a pioneer by taking all that data essential for pilots and compacting it into an "electronic flight bag," Brian Keery, a product strategy manager for Astronautics, added.

The products were standard fit into Boeings 787's and many of Boeings 777's as well, they said.

Aside from the electronic flight bags, the company routinely deals with government contracts and civic contracts. A key product is flight displays. Astronautics creates the display systems used in helicopters and aircraft such as C-130s, Bell 412/429 and event fighter jets like the F-15.

These screens display data about flights such as camera views, navigation and more, Loomis and Keery told Patch.

"Since the Wright brothers first successful flight (and many would argue the non-successful ones before it), aerospace as an industry has a been at the forefront of creating transformative technology. Does it get cooler than that? I think you know our answer," Loomis added.