Sam Michaud, managing director of Marshall Canada. Image: Submitted.
Aerospace and defence company Marshall Canada is planning to open a new production facility in southern New Brunswick.
On Tuesday the company announced its plans to open a land systems production facility in the province.
Marshall Canada, which currently offices in British Columbia and Ottawa, is setting up shop in New Brunswick in order to grow its manufacturing business. Sam Michaud, managing director of Marshall Canada says they chose the province largely because of its location and labour force.
“Proximity to our end customer was important to us. With Gagetown being right there in southern New Brunswick, it made a lot of sense. We needed access to a good strong labour force that had the kind of skill sets we’re looking for and New Brunswick had that,” said Michaud in an interview with Huddle. “And we had some experience with New Brunswick. We’ve done some work with the supply chain there so we were comfortable.”
The exact location of the facility is still being determined, but Michaud says it will be in the southern part of the province. Though they are not ruling out a new build, they ideally would like to find a property that mostly fits their needs and make any necessary modifications.
“We’re looking for a facility we can take over and adapt to our needs. It can be anywhere in that region. We’ve looked at candidate facilities all through there,” said Michaud. “The process from here is we’re going to go there this summer and start spending time with our real estate agents, looking at properties, talking to people and deciding which one of the buildings out there is best suited for us.”
Marshall Canada is part of Marshall Aerospace and Defence, one of the U.K.’s largest privately-owned defence businesses that’s been in the industry for over 100 years. The company employs more than 1,800 people across its operations in the UK, Northern Europe, North America and the United Arab Emirates.
Marshall currently employs around 75 people across its two locations in Ottawa and Abbotsford and will more than double that number when it opens the new facility next year. The New Brunswick facility is expected to create 65 direct skilled jobs in areas such as office administration, program management, engineering, assemblers, welders, and painters.
“That’s our starting point,” said Michaud. “We hope to grow from there.”
The goal is to have the facility fully operational by Fall 2022.
Cherise Letson is the associate editor of Huddle, an Acadia Broadcasting content partner.
