DAYTONA BEACH — Boeing celebrated its new Florida investment Wednesday with the opening of a defense industry hub on the campus of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
Company and school officials were joined by elected officials Wednesday to cut the ribbon on Boeing’s takeover of a new 65,000-square-foot building within ERAU’s Research Park.
“To hear that word, ‘Boeing Daytona Beach,’ just hit me sitting up front here,” said Embry-Riddle president Barry Butler. “I’ve heard Boeing Seattle. I’ve heard Boeing St Louis. To hear Boeing Daytona Beach was really special. So so glad to have you guys here.”
Boeing’s storylines the last couple of years have not been the most positive with the exception of the company’s lucrative defense contracts, and that has been the impetus behind the company’s Florida expansion.
The engineering center dedicated to working on Boeing’s Defense, Space and Security Air Dominance aircraft programs and advanced technology capabilities promises to bring 400 jobs to the region with an average salary of $115,000 a year.
Already 50 employees have settled into the new facility with 200 expected before the end of 2026.
“These are high paying, full-time positions and, most importantly, roles with purpose,” said Mark Sears, Boeing’s vice president of its fighters program, which includes the F-15, F-18 and the newly won contract for what will be the Air Force’s next-gen fighter, the F-47. “While I can’t go into a lot of detail about the work that will be done here, I can tell you that our engineers will be doing some very cool things, contributing to the most advanced, sophisticated systems and technologies and part of the world’s best fighters.”
The ceremony featured a series of loud interludes with traffic along Clyde Morris Boulevard including a few of Daytona’s signature motorcycles drowned out by the occasional plane taking flight from neighboring Daytona Beach International Airport. All of that, though was nothing to the roar created from the flyover of an F-18 crewed by a pair of Embry-Riddle grads near the end of the speeches.
The building is in the heart of the sprawling ERAU campus near the airport, which is home to nearly 9,000 students. The research park is designed to bring in commercial partners, though, and has grown to include 250,000 square feet of space across several buildings built since 2017 with more in the works.
Boeing is a tenant, but is taking up the shiniest of the research park buildings so far, which was funded in part by a $25 million donation from billionaires Cici and Hyatt Brown. Hyatt is a former speaker of the Florida House and retired CEO of insurance company Brown & Brown.
“This is a signal event for this area in economic development, which is so important, because when the economy goes up, all boats float,” Hyatt Brown said. “If you would go forward five or 10 or 15 or 20 years and think about what’s going to be here, it would blow your mind. So this is the next step, the future of this county.”
For Boeing, it marks the sixth site in Florida adding to the already 3,400 employees in the state. That includes the Boeing Starliner factory and space-related facilities at Kennedy Space Center and Brevard County.
The addition of jobs in the state is a reversal of employment news from the company since 2024.
Boeing had announced late last year it was laying off 141 amid its Florida operations that were part of a companywide 10% reduction of workforce from among what had been 170,000 employees nationwide. The layoffs came amid several airline-related missteps, a labor strike, and the headline-grabbing problems with the first crewed flight of Starliner to the International Space Station that ultimately had to depart without astronauts over safety concerns.
Also with the threat of NASA dropping funding for the Space Launch System rocket on future Artemis missions, Boeing had warned it could see another 400 layoffs of employees who work on the core stage of that rocket, including some in Brevard County.
It still has its hands in several aspects of space program, though, including support of the International Space Station, and has satellite manufacturing endeavors still paying dividends. It’s also partnered with Lockheed Martin as partners of United Launch Alliance, which has begun to pick up steam since its new Vulcan rocket was certified for national security launches.
The defense segment of Boeing’s business is also in line to compete for more federal dollars for projects such as the Golden Dome missile defense system.
Col. Rob Long, the CEO of Space Florida, the state’s aerospace finance and development authority, said the company’s investment in the state remains strong, and the Daytona Beach establishment is among the biggest recent influx of jobs in the industry.
“I think Boeing demonstrates one of the largest, most productive aerospace companies in the world, and taking up residence here, regardless of whether it’s one job or 1,000 jobs, it’s an important event,” he said.
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