Harris Corp. to add 190 local jobs, hopes to safeguard 160 more

Sean Lahman | Democrat and Chronicle

Show Caption Hide Caption NASA's Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope NASA's Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) will capture Hubble-quality images covering large swaths of sky.

Harris Corp. announced Tuesday that it will be adding 140 full-time jobs and filling an additional 50 contract positions as a result of a new contract to provide radios to the U.S. Army.

The deal, worth $3.9 billion, was announced in September. Harris will manufacture two-channel hand-held radios and equipment to mount the devices on military vehicles.

The company is looking to hire mechanical, electrical and software engineers, as well as filling various technology and manufacturing positions. It will also be adding workers in project management, business development and finance roles.

"We have an aggressive growth plan and as we execute that, we'll look to continue to add people," said Dana Mehnert, president of Harris’ Communication Systems division.

The company will hold a recruiting event to fill technician positions from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, Dec. 1, at its Jefferson Road operations center.

Mehnert appeared at a press conference in Henrietta on Tuesday afternoon with Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who helped open the bidding process and enable Harris to compete for the project. It would otherwise have be awarded to another company, Schumer said.

Given that opportunity, he said, Harris won the contract.

"Deservedly so," Schumer said. "They make a better product at a lower cost and it saves the lives of our men and women who are fighting overseas, risking their lives for us."

Schumer also called on Congress to fully fund a new space telescope project that he says would allow Harris maintain 160 high-paying jobs in Rochester.

Harris Corp. is playing a significant role in building components for NASA's Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope, a successor to the Hubble Space Telescope.

"The WFIRST program presents another opportunity for Harris to demonstrate our decades of successful achievement with space missions," said Joe Westbay, vice president of Harris's Government Systems & Commercial/Civil Imaging unit. "Our heritage with NASA spans 60 years and we look forward to continuing this legacy in the future."

The 2019 budget proposal called for canceling the project, but significant outcry from the scientific community and cost-cutting measures have kept the project alive.

However, a Senate funding bill offers $352 million in the 2019 budget for the project, while a House bill would provide just $150 million. NASA administrators told Congress this summer that the larger amount is necessary to keep the mission on schedule.

Schumer was asked whether he expected he would have to fight to preserve funding for this project every year.

"I think if we win this year and double the funding they'll give up on trying to cut this in the future," he said.

Scheduled to launch in the mid-2020s, WFIRST will expand on Hubble's capabilities. While just as sensitive as Hubble's cameras, WFIRST's 300-megapixel Wide Field Instrument will image a sky area 100 times larger. This means a single WFIRST image will hold the equivalent detail of 100 pictures from Hubble.

Scientists say the telescope will allow them to to answer cutting-edge questions in cosmology and exoplanet research.

“WFIRST has the potential to open our eyes to the wonders of the universe, much the same way Hubble has,” said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. "This mission uniquely combines the ability to discover and characterize planets beyond our own solar system with the sensitivity and optics to look wide and deep into the universe in a quest to unravel the mysteries of dark energy and dark matter.”

SLAHMAN@Gannett.com

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