[darrels joy]

Amtech gears up to produce enhanced armor for military
By LEAH BETH WARD
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC


Amtech Corp. will hire an additional 20 employees at its Wapato plant in August for production of a new military armor product, officials said Friday.

Bill Bushbaum, vice president of Amtech, said equipment to produce lightweight armor for Humvees will arrive in Wapato by mid-August with full production expected by the end of the month.

Much of the work is labor-intensive, manual production but some requires "technical smarts" because it requires operating microprocessor-based equipment, Bushbaum said.

Amtech must first run the armor through a four-week testing program at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. Bushbaum expects final test results by the end of September.

But he's confident the product will pass muster because it is a variant on Amtech's already successful fiberglass tops for Humvees, which it has been supplying to the military for three years.

"We've taken our product and beefed it up," Bushbaum said.

Though Amtech doesn't yet have a Department of Defense contract for the new product, technically called ballistic hardtops, officials say demand from troops in Iraq is high. Metal-armored Humvees are hot, heavy, prone to rollovers and can interfere with radio transmissions.

The hardtops also include a new gun turret for more protection against explosives and insurgent gunfire in Iraq.

"Every base we've visited said they'd order these. So we have pent-up demand for this product," Bushbaum said.

Amtech has spent more than $750,000 developing the ballistic hardtops. The capital investment for the new production line in Wapato will be between $500,000 and $700,000, Bushbaum said.