Featured image: RTX spokesperson Jeff Shockey (at lectern) talks about a new missile plant Raytheon-Rafael will build in East Camden, Ark., at a press conference Thursday. Behind him are (left to right): State Commerce Secretary Hugh McDonald, Ouachita Partnership for Economic Development director James Lee Silliman, and Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. (Facebook screenshot)
Article by Sonny Albarado, Arkansas Advocate
An American-Israeli joint venture will build a $33-million missile plant in Southeast Arkansas, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced Thursday.
The project, a partnership between Raytheon Technologies and Israel-based Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, will bring 30 jobs to Arkansas, the governor said.
It will start producing missiles in 2025 for the Iron Dome and the American-equivalent SkyHunter systems, Sanders said during a morning press conference.
Sanders’ remarks referenced the “evil” of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by the Palestinian Hamas militants and the continuing military action in Israel and the Gaza strip.
“We don’t shy away from being America’s arsenal,” she said, noting that military weapons and munitions are Arkansas’ largest export worth $1 billion a year. “We are not bashful about building the aircraft and weapons necessary to keep Americans safe.
“Soon everyone from the U.S. Marine Corps to the IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] will be defending innocent lives using missiles built in Arkansas,” Sanders said.
The deal to locate the new missile plant in Arkansas’ “Golden Triangle” came together during Sanders’ economic development trip to the Paris Air Show this summer, where state officials demonstrated its economic vitality and spirit, she said.
She hinted that more jobs announcements resulting from that trip would be forthcoming.
Jeff Shockey, RTX senior vice president of global governmental affairs, said the new plant will turn out about 325 SkyHunter missiles initially and ultimately 1,000 to 2,000 Tamir missiles a year for the Israeli defense system.
“There has been a lot of talk in the media about the resiliencies of the nation’s munitions industrial base, that it can’t deliver what is needed,” Shockey said. “Today we are doing something about that.”
The venture will create more than 30 jobs, Shockey said, “and we anticipate more work coming with the global demand for missile defense.”
Clint O’Neal, executive director of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, said state incentives included a $250,000 infrastructure grant from the Governor’s Quick Action Fund and performance-based income tax credits and sales tax rebates.
The project will also benefit from a proposed payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) in Calhoun County that will reduce the facility’s property taxes, said James Lee Silliman, executive director of the Ouachita Partnership for Economic Development.
In his 50-year career, Sonny Albarado has been an investigations editor, a business editor, a city editor, an environmental reporter and a government reporter at newspapers in Arkansas, Tennessee, and Louisiana. He retired from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 2020 after serving as projects editor for 12 ½ years and returned to professional journalism in 2022 to lead the Arkansas Advocate. He is a former national president of the Society of Professional Journalists and a current member of the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
The Arkansas Advocate is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to tough, fair daily reporting and investigative journalism that holds public officials accountable and focuses on the relationship between the lives of Arkansans and public policy. This service is free to readers and other news outlets.
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