Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is scheduled to visit Sierra Nevada Corporation's rapidly expanding campus. He is expected to travel alongside Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink. The visit is expected to include remarks to employees.
The stop is part of the Department of Defense's Arsenal of Freedom tour. Dayton's turn on that tour comes as Sierra Nevada has become what the Springfield News-Sun describes as Dayton's fastest-growing defense company.
A $100 Million Campus Now Carries 60% of the Company's Revenue
Sierra Nevada's Dayton International Airport complex now generates 60% of the company's overall revenue and employs about 400 workers, per the Springfield News-Sun's reporting. The firm upgrades and customizes military aircraft at the site, and has poured roughly $100 million into the campus to build out four maintenance, repair and overhaul hangars there — the same outlet reports. That build-out, completed in April, expanded the Aviation Innovation and Technology Center, per WHIO.
A $2 million ramp-infrastructure grant supported the project.
The $13 Billion Contract Behind the Growth
The engine behind Sierra Nevada's Dayton buildout is a $13 billion Air Force contract, awarded in 2024, to renew the aging E-4B Nightwatch fleet — the aircraft that serve as airborne havens for U.S. leaders during a nuclear war, the Springfield News-Sun reports. The contract, known as the Survivable Airborne Operations Center program, runs through July 2036. Boeing was eliminated from the bidding in late 2023 after declining fixed-price development terms, leaving Sierra Nevada as the sole contractor, according to Defense News.
The urgency behind the program traces to the current fleet's age. The Air Force's legacy E-4B planes date to the 1970s. To build the new command jets, Sierra Nevada agreed in May 2024 to purchase five commercial Boeing 747-8 passenger jets from Korean Air for $674 million, according to SamChui.com. The SAOC will be based on a hardened and modified commercial aircraft and include modern secure communications.
Sierra Nevada's Dayton Workforce
The Dayton site has just over 400 employees.
Sen. Jon Husted and U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, both Republicans, visited Sierra Nevada's Dayton maintenance, repair and overhaul hangars in recent weeks. Husted's visit was on September 3; Turner's came amid his reelection campaign. Turner's September visit, covered previously by Hoodline, highlighted the same 400-employee workforce and the $13 billion SAOC contract now drawing Hegseth's visit.
Why Defense Contractors Keep Choosing Dayton
Sierra Nevada's expansion did not happen in a vacuum. The company sits near Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio's largest single-site employer, with about 38,000 military and civilian workers and an annual regional economic contribution of more than $16.6 billion, according to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Air Force Materiel Command is headquartered there.
Sierra Nevada's growth comes amid broader regional aerospace investment. Hoodline has also covered the region's aviation hub ambitions.
For Dayton, the visit's focus is squarely local: a workforce that has grown to 400 people building and overhauling some of the Air Force's most sensitive aircraft, with company officials signaling more hangars and more jobs could follow.
