Democracy’s Arsenal: Camden-Area Rocket Hub Still Blasting Off

James Lee Silliman is the executive director of the Ouachita Partnership for Economic Development. He has worked to develop a hub of defense and aerospace industries at Highland Industrial Park in East Camden. (Karen E. Segrave)

Even as a new administration stirs up traditional foreign and defense policies, the aerospace and defense industry around Camden is still zooming.

“My one-word summary is ‘busy,’” said James Lee Silliman, the Camden native who has worked in regional economic development for a decade. “It’s a very active time right now for aerospace in Camden and Highland Industrial Park [in East Camden]. All of the defense contractors are busy, working on new contracts and adding investment and jobs.”

L3 Harris, parent company of Aeroject Rocketdyne, broke ground Feb. 20 on four new solid rocket motor production lines in Highland Park. The 60,000-SF expansion is part of a $215.6 million contract with the Defense Department. Aerojet Rocketdyne President Ken Bedingfield called the expansion “a strategic investment in our nation’s security at a time when defense and deterrence are increasingly critical on the global stage.”

Continuing violence in the Middle East is also helping to drive aerospace and defense work in Ouachita County. Raytheon and Israeli defense contractor Rafael Advanced Defense System will soon start production of Tamir Missiles for Israel’s Iron Dome rocket interceptor system. The partnership, known as R2S, broke ground on a $63 million facility in East Camden in February 2024. It will employ up to 60 workers and will also produce Tamir’s variant, the Skyhunter missile, for the U.S. Marine Corps and American allies, officials said.

“That facility is close to being completed, and though I haven’t talked with company officials recently, construction was proceeding very well,” Silliman said. “It’s just a matter of time before it goes into production.”

Silliman, executive director of the Ouachita Partnership for Economic Development, couldn’t provide an amount for L3 Harris’ expansion in East Camden, he said, “but they have funding to expand their capabilities, and it’s a significant amount. It’s many millions of dollars.”

$500 Million, Counting

Silliman has worked with the Arkansas Economic Development Commission to create aerospace and defense jobs and investments for nearly 10 years. “My employment anniversary is coming up in June, and during that time, across the spectrum of different companies, we’re approaching close to a half a billion dollars of investment [around Camden].”

Silliman doubts that peace prospects in Ukraine will affect industry momentum in Arkansas.

“With what’s being invested here, the upgrading of production capabilities to augment the defense industry inventory, I don’t know that any pullback in Ukraine would have much effect,” he said. “Most of these companies have long-term contracts and are working to secure more. With these multiyear contracts in place, I don’t see any slowdown in investment and job growth for the foreseeable future.”

He and other officials said there is no way for now to assess what effects new Trump administration tariffs might have on future costs or shipments. “[I] don’t want to speculate on that,” Silliman said.

Clark Cogbill, the AEDC’s director of marketing and communications, said Arkansas’ aerospace and defense sector remains strong.

“In February, for example, L3 Harris Technologies began construction on four new solid rocket motor production facilities at the company’s Camden site,” Cogbill said in an email to Arkansas Business. “On April 7, Taber Extrusions broke ground on its new facility expansion, which will introduce the largest direct extrusion press in North America, in Russellville. The company is investing $70 million in its Russellville operations and expects to create 70 new jobs.”

Taber is adding 125,000 SF to its existing 140,000-SF manufacturing and fabrication plant.

It plans to install a 1,100-ton press to handle hard and soft alloys to meet aerospace industry demands. Taber supplies clients including Boeing, Cessna and Gulfstream. And while its operations have no apparent overlap with the work in Camden, the Russellville expansion demonstrates the industry’s importance to Arkansas.

Biggest Export Industry

Aerospace is the state’s largest export industry, and exports of aircraft parts reached more than $850 million in 2023.

In a statement to Arkansas Business, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders didn’t respond to questions about the Iron Dome rocket production in Camden coinciding with her father’s appointment as the new U.S. ambassador to Israel. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was sworn in as ambassador on April 9.

But the governor did say that Arkansas is proud to serve as the world’s “arsenal of democracy.”

“The aerospace and defense industry in Camden has some of the biggest and most recognized names in the business and brings extraordinary jobs, investment and growth to South Arkansas,” she stated.

Silliman didn’t have precise employment figures for Highland Park, but said the workforce is between 3,500 and 4,000, and growing. The biggest employer is the Aerojet Rocketdyne division of L3 Harris, with about 1,300 local workers, “and they’re still hiring,” Silliman said. Next is Lockheed Martin with about 1,100.

Other major players include Raytheon Technologies, General Dynamics, Spectra Technologies, Amtec Defense Products and Valence Surface Technologies.

Highland Industrial Park, built during World War II as the Shumaker Naval Ammunition Depot (see sidebar), covers nearly 19,000 acres and holds 5.4 million SF of manufacturing and storage facilities. The government auctioned off the rocket hub as surplus property to Brown Engineering of Houston, and the property is now privately owned by Highland Resources Inc., a Houston commercial real estate company.

Why Arkansas?

Aerospace and defense companies prize Arkansas because it has business-friendly policies, an  experienced workforce and a network of schools and colleges offering aerospace training.

About 170 aerospace and defense firms operate across Arkansas, state officials say, employing close to 11,000 Arkansans. And more than 40 universities and two-year colleges award degrees and certifications for work in the sector.

Southern Arkansas University Tech, which calls itself the “Center of Excellence for Aerospace Defense Manufacturing,” is actually part of Highland Industrial Park. The Legislature created it April 5, 1967, as Southwest Technical Institute. Its mission was, and to an extent still is, to train workers for companies in the industrial park and beyond.

SAU Tech offers industrial technology degrees and certifications in aerospace-defense manufacturing skills. The University of Arkansas-Pulaski Technical College in North Little Rock has an aviation maintenance program that meets Federal Aviation Administration standards, as well as airframe and aviation power plant technician training programs.

“The workforce down here has developed an aerospace and defense mentality since the mid-1940s, and you can make a career out of working in the industry,” Silliman said. “I know of people who have had 30- and 40-year careers, and it’s kind of a culture here in the Calhoun and Ouachita County area.”

“We’ve experienced a lot of growth and investment and job creation and in aerospace and defense,” Silliman continued, “and I don’t see any slowdown in the foreseeable future.”

Working with rockets and explosives carries some risk, industry experts concede.

General Dynamics faces a $156,700 fine from the federal Occupational Health & Safety Administration after an explosion on July 3, 2024, killed one worker and injured two others at its 880,000-SF Calhoun County facility. The plant makes Hellfire and Javelin missiles, among other weapons.

The fine resulted from 12 separate safety violation citations before the blast, which occurred as the three workers “were inserting smoke composition material into aluminum pyrotechnic vessels,” according to OSHA records.

General Dynamics has contested the findings, as well as the fine.

From World War II Onward, Rockets’ Red Glare

The state’s huge manufacturing hub for rockets, missiles and munitions near Camden was born at the height of World War II as the Shumaker Naval Ammunition Depot.

“It was built by the federal government to support the war effort,” said James Lee Silliman, executive director of the Ouachita Partnership for Economic Development. “It was the premier naval rocket facility in the United States, supplying Navy rockets for the war, and it was a really big project.

“When the government built it, they took about 68,000 acres of land, about 10 square miles, and constructed over 1,200 buildings in less than a year’s time.”

During the war, the Navy began to use ship-launched rockets to attack targets on land, and they needed the depot to design, test and manufacture new rockets. Its first rockets rolled off the assembly line on April 24, 1945, according to the National Park Service. That was only four months before the war ended, but late in the war, Shumaker “played a crucial role in developing and testing innovative rocket technologies,” the service said.

Only 308 families lived on the 68,000 acres when the government condemned and took the land. In fact, the location’s sparse population was one reason the government selected the plot, along with proximity to the Ouachita River, power and natural gas resources and Camden Army Airfield to the west in Calhoun County.

The Ouachita County landowners received between $20 and $50 per acre for their plots, and the total purchase price was $1.9 million, according to the Central Arkansas Library System’s Encyclopedia of Arkansas. Some families were eager to sell; others were forced off their land.

The Navy stopped manufacturing after the war, but kept up maintenance and resumed making munitions at the start of the Korean War in 1950.

“It was fairly busy during Korea, but in the late 1950s it was declared government surplus and auctioned off,” Silliman said. Twenty-five entities bid on the property in 1961, but the top bidders were International Paper, now based in Memphis, and Brown Engineering of Houston, an affiliate of Brown & Root.

IP and Brown collaborated, with Brown creating the East Camden Industrial Park, later renamed Highland, and IP harvesting the acreage’s heavy timber.

“Brown needed trained technicians … and donated six buildings and about 75 acres of land to the state to create a technical school,” the encyclopedia said. The school opened in 1968 as the Southwest Technical Institute. Today it is Southern Arkansas University Tech.

Shumaker’s housing stock became the basis of today’s town of East Camden, and the industrial park is now owned by Highland Resources Inc. of Houston, a real estate company founded by Herman and George Brown, co-founders of Brown & Root.

“Highland Park still has available space — green space available to be built upon and leased from Highland management,” Silliman said. “The cost of doing business is relatively low, and the workforce is skilled and experienced.”