Salem gun maker moves to Redmond, taking 25 jobs

A Salem gun manufacturer is moving to Redmond, taking about 25 jobs to Central Oregon after outgrowing its plant here.

Radian Weapons' flagship product is a rifle component that allows users to load a round into their gun after they insert the magazine. The company also makes a semiautomatic, AR-15 style rifle called the Model 1, and firearm accessories such as silencers and optic mounts.

The company opened in 2009 under the name AXTS Weapons Systems. But business has been so good the manufacturer has outgrown its roughly 6,000 square-foot southeast Salem plant, which will close by February.

Only about 10 employees — mostly administrative, sales and manufacturing staff — are moving to Central Oregon with the company, Chief Executive Joshua Underwood told the Statesman Journal from Redmond.

Radian offered other employees severance packages.

The average salary for Salem employees was between $55,000 and $60,000, Underwood said.

The company didn't stay in Salem because of a shortage of available real estate and frustrations with the local workforce. Radian struggled to find "quality" workers in Salem who are skilled at manufacturing, Underwood said.

In addition, the company needs more office and manufacturing space than it has.

Before choosing the Redmond building, company officials had looked farther north in the Willamette Valley, but had no luck finding property with the right mix of office and manufacturing space.

After Underwood widened his search to Central Oregon, he found the "perfect building" in northeast Redmond off Highway 97.

With approximately 25,000 square feet, the building is divvied up between about 8,000 square feet of office space and 17,000 square feet for production, he said.

He said the relocation will end up costing "hundreds of thousands" of dollars. That includes electrical upgrades needed to bring the new building up to speed and the cost of hauling equipment from Salem.

To get the company's workforce back to normal, Radian plans to kick off a hiring spree in mid-December. Afterward, the company will add 8 to 12 more positions over the next year.

Radian didn't take advantage of tax incentives when it opened in Salem in 2009.

Jon Stark, senior director of Redmond Economic Development, Inc., the city's economic development nonprofit, said Radian hasn't applied for any incentives, but "we anticipate they will."

Redmond is a blue-collar city that's "no stranger to manufacturing," Stark said.

The manufacturing sector in Redmond grew from 858 to 1,291 jobs between 2011 and 2016, according to local economic development figures.

Underwood called the city's gun-friendliness "a very nice benefit." The city of about 29,000 is generally more conservative politically than Oregon's larger urban centers.

The company will attract employees who care about the firearms industry, he said, but being somewhere gun-friendly "wasn't mandatory."

Underwood thanks former President Barack Obama for customers' healthy appetite for firearms.

Concern among gun enthusiasts about a possible ban on assault weapons under the Obama administration drove people to stock up on those kinds of weapons and extra parts, he said, though the ban "never materialized."

“They say Obama was the best gun salesman that ever lived,” he said.

Once voters elected Donald Trump, sales of those firearms dropped about 30 to 40 percent, Underwood said. Still, he says Radian's sales are up about 10 percent year-over-year because the company mostly sells accessories.

Reach Jonathan Bach by email at jbach@statesmanjournal.com or by phone at 503-399-6714. Follow him on Twitter @JonathanMBach and Facebook at www.facebook.com/jonathanbachjournalist/.