Tulsa firm gets major Boeing contract

Good news on the city's economic front. Tulsa-based Safety Training Systems will build a cargo compartment trainer for the Air Force's C-17 cargo planes. <br><br>As News on 6 business reporter

Tuesday, March 4th 2003, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

Good news on the city's economic front. Tulsa-based Safety Training Systems will build a cargo compartment trainer for the Air Force's C-17 cargo planes.

As News on 6 business reporter Steve Berg tells us, ironically, it's a product that stays on the ground, but is very important to the Air Force, and important to Tulsa. Boeing gave a local company, Safety Training Systems, an 18-million dollar contract to build a Cargo Compartment Trainer.

A good contract any time, but the company says, especially now. Bruce Bartovick with Safety Training Systems Inc. "The simulator industry is basically flat right now and this enables us to stabilize our workforce. At one time, it was 38 employees; we're up to 67 employees. We should add another 30 to 50 employees through the duration of this contract."

It's also said to be one of the largest contracts given to a woman-owned business by Boeing in recent years. But the owner herself praised her employees. Mollie Williford, "When I attend military air shows, the reputation is that they deliver a first-class product on-time.â€ Boeingâ€™s representative from St. Louis echoed those sentiments. Bill James, â€œThey produce quality work. They're always on time. We used them for the first cargo compartment trainer, and this is a mirror image of the first one."

The trainer will be installed at Altus Air Force Base, which also gave Tulsa an edge to get the contract. Bartovick, "This trainer is going to take many flatbed trucks to disassemble and take it to Altus, and not far to go." But the contract goes a long way to help Tulsa's struggling aircraft business.

Safety Training Systems has about two dozen military-related customers and about 4-dozen commercial customers.