Sikorsky Visit

For the past several months I've been trying diligently to get a job. On Thursday/Friday of last week I flew to Connecticut to interview with the Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation. I flew into Hartford, which is a nice airport. It's probably smaller than Salt Lake City, so there was not too much traffic. I had arranged to meet Ben and Jenn that night at their house in NJ, so I grabbed my rental car and hit the road.
After about 2 hrs and 45 minutes I pulled into their house. I must say, driving in Connecticut was much more pleasant than either New Jersey or New York. I basically had no traffic to fight until about three miles over the NY state line. Then it just got worse from there. I did get to go over a beautiful bridge (Tappan Zee Bridge) over what I think was the Hudson River. The most interesting thing to me about New Jersey was that there were a lot of 5-way intersections. I'm not sure who was doing their traffic planning at the time, but that is simply not a very efficient model.
After only one wrong turn I made it to Ben's in time for dinner and the chance to play with Henry for a minute before his bed time. It was good to see them and get to see where they lived. Their house is very nice and they have done good things with it.
By about 11 pm it was time to get heading back, so I took off. I knew that late their wouldn't be any traffic heading out of New York, so I took I-95 through the Bronx. Naturally, they were doing construction on the freeway, so at 11:30 it was packed, stop-and-go traffic. I actually didn't end up pulling into my hotel in Stratford, CT, until after 1 am. Luckily that was like 11 pm Utah time, so I wasn't so tired it was dangerous. I quickly found my room and went to bed.
The next morning I had to be to the Sikorsky facility by 8:45. This wasn't too bad considering breakfast was included at the hotel and Sikorsky is literally across the street from where I stayed.
As I approached the building I realized that it is a REALLY big place. During my tour I was told that approximately 10,000 employees work there (3,500 engineers!) and it is basically it's own little city; they have their own credit union, two cafeterias, and millions of square feet of production floor space. It was quite impressive.
The coolest few things I saw were about 30 Blackhawk Helicopters in various stages of fabrication, one of the President's helicopters like he always flies to the White House in was there having maintenance done, and the rotor blade test stand. The test stand is where they balance the rotor blades. Basically, they hook the blades on and spin them up to speed and test how they do and make small adjustments to them so they're all balanced. When they spin the really big blades up to speed and change the pitch on them it pushes all the trees over near the test stand!

Here's a photo of some Blackhawks if you don't know what they look like.
The interviews went quite well and I had a good time learning about what they do and who they are. I think my skills and experience match quite well what they are looking for. They need someone to help them make the rotor blades for all of their helicopters. Since they're made out of mostly composite materials, that is along the same lines of what I did for ATK before MBA school.
The company appears to be doing well. They have $10 billion in backorders from customers. They are producing Blackhawks at a rate of 1.5 per day. They expect to expand business 5 times in the near future. One of their biggest challenges is the cost of doing business in Connecticut, particularly since they're a unionized shop.
I hope to know in the near future if they were as impressed with me as I was with them. Then we'll decide if it is a good opportunity for us!