Ribbon cutting Tuesday for General Dynamics facility in Pawcatuck
Stonington — A local company which helps develop stealth technologies for U.S. submarines will officially mark the opening of a new facility in Pawcatuck during a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday. The facility began operating at 100 Mechanic St. at the beginning of June.
The new 21,000-square-foot facility is operated by the research, development and engineering firm Applied Physical Sciences Corp., which is headquartered in Groton. General Dynamics acquired the company in December 2012.
Ten employees are housed at the new facility but that number is expected to grow as is the infrastructure there, according to APS president Charles "Chuck" Corrado. The company, as a whole, has 131 employees and has doubled its prototyping staff in the last 18 months, according to Corrado. He would not specify the cost of the new facility, but said it represented a "significant investment."
Corrado provided few specifics on the company's work, saying that much of it is sensitive and unable to be disclosed to the public. The company's clients include the government, universities and industries.
"Two emerging products that are important to our future" are being established in the new facility, Corrado said. The first is environmentally sensitive oil exploration technology that is intended to reduce the environmental impact of offshore oil and gas exploration, he said. That research is being sponsored by ExxonMobil, Shell and Total.
The second is a system to forecast ship motions, which Corrado called a breakthrough in technology.
The system, for example, would allow a ship to predict its movement when offloading heavy cargo such as a tank from one ship to another, Corrado explained.
The company works closely with Electric Boat and Corrado estimated that about 40 percent of its work is related to submarine technology.
"Everything the submarine force is doing right now in terms of extending the reach of submarines, it fits in perfectly with that," U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, said of the work APS does.
Courtney and U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy are expected to attend the ribbon-cutting.
"It's proof that being the submarine capital of the world pays a lot of dividends," Blumenthal said of the new facility.
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