Navajo factory boosts defense arsenal

For 20 years now workers at a plant near Farmington have quietly built parts for some of America's most high-tech tools of war.

The remote factory on the Navajo reservation not only helps to fight wars overseas but also a war against poverty at home.

Raytheon's defensive "SM-2" missile protects U.S. and allied Navy ships from incoming enemy missiles.

And at the Army's White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico Raytheon's "Excalibur" guided artillery shell is fired from cannon but uses fins to precisely guide itself to a target.

Raytheon said it is far more precise than other artillery shells allowing troops to focus their strikes on enemy troops and minimize the risk to civilians.

These weapons and many others begin their journey to combat at the Raytheon Diné factory on the edge of the Navajo Nation south of Farmington.

This is the 20th anniversary of a place that started with just a handful of employees and now provides jobs for more than 300.

Alberta Reed was there at the beginning.

"I was very young," Reed said. "And actually it was exciting. It was something new."

The factory doesn't assemble entire missiles but instead produces sub-assemblies, individual segments that are then sent to a Raytheon plant in Tucson for final assembly into missiles ready to be sent out to the troops.

New Mexico Raytheon site executive Robert Joe said employees know that their work must be of the highest quality.

"We provide a service and a product to our war fighters that are out in the field protecting our country and the freedom we enjoy," Joe said. "Every day that we come in there is a sense that there's no doubt that the product we provide will work every time, all the time."

Leaders of the Navajo Nation say building these weapons not only helps protect U.S. troops, but the jobs mean economic survival for many Navajo families.

While the rest of the country struggles with 10 percent unemployment, on the reservation more than half the people have no jobs. Of the workers at Raytheon Diné' 92 percent are Navajo.

"The Navajo advantage is our people," Sharlene Begaye-Platero of Navajo Economic Development said. "Raytheon saw that our people are excellent workers who could build the products that they need.

"If we could have 10 Raytheon plants for the next five years we could have our unemployment go to single-digit figures."

In addition to Raytheon, the Navajo Nation has attracted other business to its NAPI Industrial Park near Farmington and is aggressively seeking more providing tax breaks and other incentives. The moves prompted Raytheon to radically expand last year.

"We've gone through tremendous growth, 136 percent growth, which is quite a bit," Joe said. "We have more new people than seasoned people."

The factory motto written in the Navajo language translates as, "We hold each other accountable for the quality of our work."

"For me personally I like the challenge," Milford Joe of Raytheon Diné said. "I try to challenge myself to do a good job every day, and I know for the folks out here they try to do a good job every day. Build it right the first time."

Raytheon just officially renamed its New Mexico plant as Raytheon Diné. In Navajo Diné means "the people."

Raytheon said it better reflects the workers and the culture of the facility.

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