The Santa Clarita-based nonprofit Southern Pacific Aero-Defense Alliance held its inaugural event Wednesday at College of the Canyons, with a panel discussion on California’s historical aero-defense industry and how to protect it.
Speakers and panelists spent the afternoon reiterating the importance of SPADA’s mission: to cultivate partnerships among government agencies, companies and schools to bolster Southern California’s aerospace and defense industries.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger told audience members at the college’s Performing Arts Center that SPADA’s aims were particularly important to L.A. County.
“Aerospace and defense have long anchored our regional economy and position this region and state as a global leader,” Barger said. “Los Angeles Air Force Base and Edwards Air Force Base are imperative to keeping these industries based in California, in Los Angeles County, the largest county in this nation.”
Barger emphasized the importance of both the economic benefits of SPADA-catalyzed partnerships for the county and educational ones, adding that she was looking forward to an Advanced Technology Center at College of the Canyons for supporting aerospace and defense learning – a facility project that’s been on the back burner since the college’s previous ATC project fell through in 2024.
“When young people see opportunities in aerospace and defense, whether in engineering, skill trades, cyber security or project management, we are building the next generation of innovators right here at home,” Barger said. “My office is committed to supporting this work.”
Panel members Rep. George Whitesides, D-Agua Dulce, and OJ Sanchez, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, discussed the current outlook for the region’s aerospace and defense industries and what Santa Clarita students currently preparing to enter the fields could look forward to.
Whitesides – formerly the chief of staff of NASA and CEO of Virgin Galactic, a private spaceflight company headquartered in Orange County – said they were in a golden age for aerospace, with Southern California at its center.
“I just ran into the four astronauts in Washington, D.C., who within, I don’t know, a month or two, (Lockheed Martin Skunk Works) or Lockheed Martin is building the vehicle that’s going to take them … (and) they’re getting ready to launch,” Whitesides said. “Whether it’s that, or whether it’s drones, or it’s electric aviation that’s going to decarbonize our future transportation systems, there are so many exciting things to be a part of right now.”
Sanchez said Southern California’s aerospace and defense ecosystem has historically been special because of the partnerships SPADA wants to strengthen. He added that there’s room for the future of the industry to look like its past, but “we have to lean into that.”
“The reason now is there’s a lot of needs,” Sanchez said. “So increasingly, whether it be on the civil side, you know, we can talk about work we’re doing together in California, around say, combating wildfires. There’s a lot of technologies that can help with that. Or it’s on the exploration side. I’m pushing to the limits of space again, for the exploration … or in our national defense, which we’re all living now.”
