The company, which is a subsidiary of Rome-based Finmeccanica SPA, is headquartered in the UK and has offices in Reston, VA, and plants and offices in Italy and the UK. It came to Philadelphia in the early 1980s, opened a 75,000-sf maintenance facility in 1988 and completed the 168,000-sf assembly addition this year.

In addition to the assembly of a growing line of commercial helicopters, this facility also provides customer support for a fleet of more than 360 helicopters in the Americas and provides flight and maintenance training activities. The new expansion will add 150 new jobs and take the company's overall local employment above 500.

The state has provided $400,000 for the project. The package includes a $200,000 opportunity grant and $200,000 in job creation tax credits. In 2004, the Governor's Action Team provided slightly more than $2 million for the $6.8-million expansion that was just completed. "It was an easy decision to allocate additional state dollars to aid in the continued expansion of this established international corporation," Gov. Ed Rendell says in a statement.