LONG BEACH >> Virgin Galactic will hold a career fair and open house at its Long Beach facility Saturday.
The commercial spaceflight company is hiring 100 positions. The event will be held from 9 a.m. to noon at 4022 East Conant St. in Douglas Park at Long Beach Airport.
“These are primarily technical positions, engineers, technicians” said Will Pomerantz, vice president of special projects at the company.
For a full list of open positions and to RSVP to the career fair visit www.virgingalactic.com.
Virgin Galactic decided to open a facility in Long Beach because of the area’s workforce base, Pomerantz said.
“It’s a pretty special place to work,” he said. “It’s not just about turning a crank and churning out a product.”
The company is part of Virgin Group Ltd., a British multinational venture capital conglomerate that includes Virgin Mobile, Virgin Atlantic Airways and Virgin America. The spacefight company aims to provide affordable space flights to tourists and is developing a rocket to launch small satellites into orbit.
Virgin Galactic’s 150,000 square-foot Long Beach facility will be dedicated to research and manufacture of the rocket, called LauncherOne. The two-stage rocket is designed to put payloads up to 500 pounds into low earth orbit, or payloads up to 265 pounds into high-altitude sun-synchronous orbit for less than $10 million.
The company announced its decision to open the Long Beach facility last month. The news came amid the ongoing dissolution of thousands of well-paying aerospace jobs at Boeing, which is wrapping up production on the final C-17 military airlifter.
“We’re looking for people who have a very sound technical background and who are passionate about what they do,” Pomerantz said. “We’re just very excited.”
Contact Greg Yee at 562-499-1476.
