BRUNSWICK
Three months after Tempus Jet Centers II LLC announced it would relocate to Brunswick Executive Airport from Newport News, Va., several private jets are undergoing maintenance or custom modification in Hangar 6.
However, numerous personnel offices in the makeshift local headquarters are another story.
The office space remains a jumble of furniture that has yet to be arranged, filing cabinets that have yet to be organized and desks piled high with boxes and bales.
Mostly it’s because their occupants either have yet to arrive from the international aircraft maintenance and brokerage company’s former locations in Virginia and South Carolina; or are here, but too busy in the hangar to waste time on amenities.
Although many of the company’s officers are elsewhere during the holidays, work continued recently in Hangar 6’s various rooms and cubbies, converted into fabrication shops and drafting and design offices.
One former office now functions as a carpentry and finish shop where custom cabinets are being built for installation in one of the private jets parked inside the cavernous hangar.
Tempus announced in September that it would relocate to Brunswick Executive Airport because its repair and modification division was outgrowing its existing space. Of the locations around the country where co-founder and CEO Scott Terry searched for space, only Brunswick had the requisite space and availability.
Plus, there was the added benefit of familiarity — Terry, a former Navy P-3 Orion pilot, was stationed in Brunswick in the 1990s.
Tempus also needs to complete transfer of the Federal Aviation Administration certification under which it is allowed to work on aircraft. The FAA currently is processing the transfer to its Flight Standards District Office, or FSDO, in Portland.
FAA spokesman Jim Peters said that process is almost complete.
Since September, Tempus has operated under a temporary conditional license held by the Portland Flight Standards District Office, located at the Portland Jetport, callsigned PWM.
“There are only a couple of steps left,” Peters said, “so, although there isn’t a date (by which) we can promise it will be done, it should be very shortly.”
Tempus’s Brunswick facility is the 11th different business entity under the umbrella of Orion Air Group Holdings LLC, which is owned equally between cofounders Terry and the president and chief financial officer, Jack Gulbin. They signed a one-year start-up lease at BXM, with renewable one-year options, and expect to employ up to 50 workers by the end of 2014.
Some of its personnel will continue to be relocated from other Tempus Aircraft locations, while others will be hired both locally and nationwide. One Tempus official who declined to be named said finding local workers with the required technical background and abilities thus far has proven difficult.
Tempus leased nearly 35,000 square feet at Brunswick Landing to relocate and expand its aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul business.
The Virginia-based company, which claims annual revenues of $125 million, announced in September it expected to move 10 to 12 workers from its Newport News, Va., facility to Brunswick. The firm then plans to employ 25 people here by the end of the year and 50 by the end of 2014.
The company also stated that Tempus’ machine repair and overhaul business “has grown rapidly in the past two years. If it continues to expand at the same pace, the company estimates 200 new technical and engineering jobs will be created in Brunswick.”
jtleonard@timesrecord.com
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