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Tremonton » Over the years, residents of this small northern Utah community 20 miles northeast of Alliant Techsystems' Promontory plant have enjoyed the booms and endured the busts of the state's aerospace industry.
The waves of hiring and firings that came amid the ebb and flow of federal space and defense contracts were as much a part of the economic landscape as the towers of smoke billowing above the nearby hills after ATK test-fired its rocket motors.
Yet ATK's announcement last week that it would lay off 450 people, or 10 percent of its Utah work force, is viewed by many as a particularly hard blow for Tremonton, given last year's unexpected closure of the La-Z-Boy
"Times just aren't real good right now," said Tremonton Mayor Max Weese. "But at least with ATK, there is always the possibility that the jobs they expect to eliminate eventually will come back."
Weese knows of what he speaks.
During the mid-1960s he worked at the plant then operated by Thiokol Propulsion Corp., which in 2001 was acquired by ATK. "We had layoffs back then, and then there would be a wave of hiring. It is a cyclical business."
Although it is unclear how many ATK workers call Tremonton home -- many of the Promontory plant's 3,500 or so employees commute from nearby communities that include Brigham City, Farr West and Ogden -- any job losses among its residents can be expected to affect the area economy.
And though not all is doom and gloom, already many of the town's residents are concerned. Mary Bernard, who manages the Ready Money pay-day and automobile title loan store in downtown Tremonton and whose husband works at ATK, is worried the layoffs will mean a decline in her business.
"My husband is a chemist who has worked there for 35 years, and I'm not worried about his job since it is in the environmental area," she said.
And if any of them should happen to lose their jobs, Bernard said she won't be able to help out by offering them loans because she can't do business with anyone who isn't employed.
ATK spokeswoman Trina Patterson said the projected layoffs, which are in addition to the 300 workers who lost their jobs in March, will affect all three of the company's facilities in Utah: Promontory; West Valley City, where about 800 people are employed; and Clearfield, where an additional 200 work.
Job losses are expected to affect aerospace engineers on down.
ATK said it needs to reduce its work force for a variety of reasons, from the winding down of the space shuttle program, for which ATK manufactures solid-fuel booster motors; to a slowdown in its contracts for Minuteman III missile motors; and unplanned Defense Department contract cancellations.
"This is not just an ATK issue," Patterson said. "Other contractors in the aerospace industry, especially those working on the shuttle, are feeling the effects."
Although ATK will be building the main solid-fuel rocket motor for the Ares 1 rocket, which NASA wants to begin using in 2015 for trips to the international space station and eventually for a return to the moon, the demand for employees to work on that project isn't expected to be as great as the numbers needed for the space shuttle.
Around the corner from the Ready Money store, Bear River Valley Realty principal broker Kathy Fuhriman expects to see a wave of higher-priced homes put up for sale once the layoffs begin.
"What we've experienced is that whenever there were layoffs at ATK, many of those who lost their jobs would end up putting their homes up for sale and moving away," she said. "When you're an aerospace engineer who has lost a job at ATK, there aren't many prospects in Tremonton. Many of them just move on."
Down the road in Brigham City, east of the Promontory plant, municipal officials also are concerned about the upcoming layoffs and the potential ripple effect they could have on businesses.
"When people get laid off, they're naturally going to reduce their expenditures, and that means that the shops, restaurants and other businesses in town are going to be affected," said Paul Larsen, economic development director for Brigham City. "But until we actually know how many people at the Promontory plant will be losing their jobs, it will be hard to estimate how it will impact us locally."
There might even be a silver lining, Larsen suggested.
"Just a couple of years ago there were companies in Utah that were advertising feverishly for a couple of hundred engineers," he said. "So if this is just one of those fluctuations in the industry, it could be a positive development (in the long run) if it frees up a number of engineers who may be needed elsewhere."
Derek Miller, acting director of the Governor's Office of Economic Development, also suggests that the planned layoffs at ATK may be part of the normal cycle in the aerospace industry.
"I don't want to downplay the layoffs because the numbers reflect individuals who have families and close ties to their communities," Miller said. "But we have companies coming to us practically every day looking for engineers to go to work for them."
In the short term, Utahns can expect employment opportunities to soften. Alliant Techsystem's plan to layoff 450 employees this fall could mean that the number of jobs will be down as much as 5.7 percent from last year.
The last time the state saw a year-over-year decline in aerospace employment was 2003, when levels declined 4.5 percent, according to data from the Utah Department of Workforce Services.
