Here's why Robins Air Force Base is getting 400 new jobs
The F-35 fighter is responsible for new jobs coming to Robins Air Force Base.
The heavy maintenance work at Hill Air Force Base in Utah on C-130 transport planes flown by the Navy and Marine Corps is coming to Robins because Hill needs to make room for a growing workload on F-35 fighter jets, Brig. Gen. John Kubinec said Thursday.
The end result, he said, is that while Robins is expected to eventually gain 400 jobs from the shift, Hill will not lose any jobs.
"As the F-35 workload grows there at Ogden, they just don’t have the space to do all the work we are going to ask them to do on F-35s and continue to do the Navy C-130s," said Kubinec, commander of the Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex. "Because of that and the work we already do here on C-130s, it made a perfect fit."
Kubinec said the move has been in the works for years.
The first of those C-130s is expected to arrive at Robins in June, and the work will gradually ramp up through 2021, when the base will be doing the heavy maintenance on all of the planes flown by the Navy and Marine Corps. Although the C-130s will have different markings, people from off base probably won't be able to distinguish the planes from other C-130s as they fly in, Kubinec said.
The 400 jobs coming with the new C-130 work is in addition to the 500 jobs Kubinec said last year the base is hiring for the complex. He said about half of those jobs are still vacant.
"The message I want to get out to our community is Robins is still hiring," he said.
Kubinec also addressed the recent release of the Pentagon's proposed budget for fiscal 2019. Although it calls for canceling the program to buy new planes for the J-STARS unit at Robins, Kubinec said overall the proposed budget is good for Robins because it increases spending on readiness.
"I’m very heartened by it because of the investment in readiness, and we are going to be called upon to follow through on that," he said.
U.S. Rep. Austin Scott, a Georgia Republican whose district includes Robins, released a statement Thursday on the new C-130 workload.
“There could not be a better place than the Warner Robins ALC for the new home of Navy-Marine C-130 aircraft maintenance," he said. "I'm very proud to see this investment being made in Georgia's Eighth Congressional District which will continue to strengthen Middle Georgia's role in bolstering our national defense."
This story was originally published February 15, 2018 at 2:13 PM with the headline "Here's why Robins Air Force Base is getting 400 new jobs."