Lockheed Martin Corp. (NYSE: LMT) is seeking to fill more than 200 total open positions at its plants in Salina in Onondaga County, and Owego in Tioga County. 

The open positions are about evenly split between the two locations, says Matthew Wilkowski, systems engineering manager with Lockheed Martin in Salina.

“It’s pretty close to 50-50,” he says. Wilkowski spoke with CNYBJ in a phone interview on Jan. 8

Lockheed Martin is hoping to hire people for entry-level jobs and for positions that will require more experience. The jobs are available in both technology and manufacturing areas, he notes.

“It’s really due to some of our engineering population coming into retirement age, and that coupled with a whole lot of contracts coming in and future work that we’re forecasting as well,” says Wilkowski.

Lockheed Martin currently employs about 1,600 people at the Salina plant and about 2,500 in Owego.

The company is seeking candidates for positions in systems engineering, electrical engineering, and hardware and software engineering. On the manufacturing side, Lockheed is looking for experienced assembly and electronic technicians and testers, according to Wilkowski.

“In the engineering-technology part of our business, we’re looking for people with STEM-related bachelor’s degrees … degrees such as electrical engineering, computer engineering, computer science, math and physics majors,” he says. 

STEM is short for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

“On the operations or manufacturing side, the firm wants people with experience in the different trade skills in assembling and things like that,” says Wilkowski.

The Bethesda, Maryland–based defense contractor held a career fair for those openings on Jan. 11 at Destiny USA.

CNYBJ asked Wilkowski what people can do if they’re interested in applying but couldn’t attend the career fair.

“They can go to lockheedmartin.com/careers and there they can sort and filter on both Liverpool, New York and Owego, New York to find the available positions at both of these New York sites,” says Wilkowski. 

He offered some advice to people who might choose to pursue an entry-level position with Lockheed Martin. 

Candidates “don’t necessarily need to be a radar engineer” to apply for an entry-level position, as long as they have a background in the STEM fields, he says. Wilkowski says Lockheed Martin will provide training “based on the engineering skills that you already have.”

 Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com

ENFIELD, N.Y. — Businesses and residential customers in parts of Central New York and the Southern Tier can now buy electricity powered by a new solar array in Enfield, just west of Ithaca.

BlueRock Solar, a division of Syracuse–based BlueRock Energy, said the 2.3 megawatt array was completed and connected to the power grid. 

Michael Francis, general manager of BlueRock Solar, tells CNYBJ that customers in NYSEG’s central zone — which includes Ithaca, Binghamton, Auburn, and Elmira — can now subscribe to purchase power from the solar farm that sits on 13.5 acres on Mecklenburg Road. 

This is BlueRock’s second community solar farm. The first was completed in April in Millport, south of Watkins Glen, and was fully subscribed within two months. 

The Enfield solar farm is larger, Francis says, and can provide enough electricity to power some 300 homes or small businesses. Each subscriber can sign up for a portion of the output of the 6,804 solar panels that make up the array, he says. 

Renovus Solar, of Ithaca, was the general contractor.

Each month, the array will be metered and customers will be charged for the amount of energy they signed up for. Francis says residential customers and small businesses will qualify for a 5 percent discount on the supply and delivery portion of their bill.

A community solar farm simplifies using solar electricity, Francis explains. There is no need to purchase equipment or have installers come to the home or business. “We are not running a wire to their house,” he says. Instead, the electricity is transported to the home on the existing power grid.

“There is no money down,” Francis says. “You’re just purchasing the power.”

Francis added that the savings customers receive involves two bills, one from BlueRock and the second from NYSEG. Customers would pay BlueRock a discounted price for supply and delivery of power and would receive credits on their NYSEG bill for the higher, undiscounted price.

BlueRock says it has other projects in the works, including another solar farm in Western New York.

While nearly all subscribers for the Millport solar farm are residential customers, Francis says that small businesses can subscribe and receive a discount. Additionally, he says, marketing materials are available, so businesses can share with their customers that they are using solar power.

According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, New York gets slightly more than 1 percent of all its electricity from solar, enough to power nearly 200,000 homes.  

Contact McChesney at cmcchesney@cnybj.com

NORWICH, N.Y. — Esterline/Norwich Aero Products recently sold the building located at 50 O’Hara Drive in Norwich. Marty Dowd and Rick Searles of CBRE/Syracuse represented the seller in the transaction, the real-estate firm said in a news release. The price was not disclosed.

Chentronics, LLC, will occupy the building, expanding its Norwich operations to the larger 57,640-square-foot industrial/light manufacturing facility. The firm’s current address is 115 County Road 45, Airport Industrial Park, Norwich — according to its website.

Chentronics provides high-energy ignition and flame detection technology, and is a division of John Zink Company, which is part of Koch Industries.    

Contact the Business Journal News Network at news@cnybj.com