Given the pace and number of automotive industry projects throughout the state, Alabama's industrial focus may appear to be increasingly one-dimensional. But in fact, a scattergram of recent projects would reveal investments that both dovetail with the automotive growth spurt and diverge from it in an economically healthy manner.
        Aerospace is in prime condition itself. Boeing alone, primarily through rocket and missile plants in Huntsville and Decatur, pumps more than $1.2 billion into the state economy on an annual basis, and is tied to some 9,000 jobs statewide. Elsewhere in Huntsville, Northrop Grumman – which already employs 1,300 Alabamans – plans to hire 500 more over the next seven years as a result of the $4.5-billion Pentagon contract it secured, along with Raytheon, in December 2003. In Tallassee, U.K.-based GKN Aerospace Services is expected to add 100 new workers to its 425-employee plant in order to service a wing panel contract with Airbus for its massive 555-seat A380 aircraft. The $40 million in plant investment by GKN over the past few years is just part of what Airbus has identified as its $600-million economic impact on this central Alabama region.
        Near Boeing's complex in Decatur, longtime corporate resident 3M Corp. is investing $126 million in a new production line that will occupy 110,000 new sq. ft. (10,219 sq. m.) at its Tennessee River plant, which employs 640 people. The new line, under construction now, will support the Specialty Films and Media Products Division operations at the site and could mean the addition of 60 new jobs. A separate $27.4-million expansion is expected to create 15 more jobs.
        "Through the hard work and dedication of the Decatur employees along with our laboratory personnel in St. Paul, we've begun a reinvention of film operations at the site," said Dr. Rebecca Morlando, plant manager for 3M film operations in Decatur."