WICHITA, Kan. (AP) - Spirit AeroSystems will lease space in a new building at Wichita State University’s Innovation Campus.
The aircraft manufacturing company will occupy an 8,000-square-foot (2438-meter) office on the second floor of the new Partnership 2 Building.
Tom Gentile the company’s CEO. He told The Wichita Eagle that the new space first physical location on the school’s campus.
“I think it’s an exciting milestone in our partnership,” Gentile said.
Gentile said the space will assist with recruiting new engineers and interns.
“It’s important for us to be around that kind of talent,” he said.
Gentile said the university’s engineering students will help Spirit with its new product development work and longer-term research projects. They’ll work as paid interns or as part of their course work.
“They’ll be involved in some of the collaborative research projects we’re doing,” Gentile said, such as composites, tooling, prototyping and advanced structural analytics. “It’s very similar to what they’re doing in other parts of NIAR (WSU’s National Institute for Aviation Research) today.”
Spirit plans to have between 25 and 30 people assigned to the building, but Gentile said they’ll spend their working hours between the university’s campus and the company’s south Oliver plant.
Officials said it will take up to three months to finish the constructing Spirit’s office space.
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