A company in Charlestown that manufactures printed circuit boards will receive $46.2 million in federal funds through the U.S. Defense Department, U.S. Sen Jeanne Shaheen announced recently.
The funding will promote the domestic supply chain for semiconductors, which are used by all major U.S. defense systems, the New Hampshire Democrat said in a news release last week.
“New Hampshire plays a critical role in our nation’s defense industrial base and these federal funds will help enhance production and manufacturing capabilities at GreenSource Fabrication,” said Shaheen, a Madbury resident who is a member of the Senate Committee on Armed Services.
“These funds will broaden access to advanced hardware that — until recently — could only be procured from foreign sources, helping strengthen our supply chain and military readiness and solidifying New Hampshire’s role as a leader in domestic defense manufacturing.”
The news release said the federal funds will enable GreenSource “to scale up engineering, tooling and manufacturing operations to establish a dedicated building for integrated circuit substrate fabrication, crucial parts in the fabrication of semiconductor devices.”
It also said these devices are critical for radar, electronic warfare, information processing and communications.
GreenSource is owned by Whelen Engineering, which is headquartered in Chester, Conn., and has campuses there and in Charlestown. Whelen employs about 1,500 people, with about 800 on its 40-acre campus in Charlestown.
“On behalf of everyone at GreenSource Fabrication, we are honored to have been selected by the Department of Defense to receive a grant through the Defense Production Act Investment Program,” said a note on its website.
“The $46.2 million will be used to expand GreenSource’s capacity and capabilities to further develop technologies that are utilized to enhance national security and protect our Warfighters worldwide.”
The Defense Production Act Investment Program supports the manufacture of supplies needed for national defense. This year, the program made 25 awards totaling $781 million, according to a Dec. 21 Defense Department news release.
Laura Taylor-Kale, assistant U.S. secretary of defense for industrial base policy, said in the release that it is essential to restore domestic production of the advanced electronics GreenSource builds.
She said expanding domestic production for printed circuit boards “is necessary to avert a shortfall that would severely impair national defense capability.”
— RICK GREEN/KEENE SENTINEL
