Leaders at Anduril, the California company promising to build automated, weaponized drones in Pickaway County starting next year, joined Ohio economic development officials in downtown Columbus Wednesday.
Hosted by , hundreds of people bought tickets to connect with others interested in doing business with the defense company that prides itself on behaving like a technology company.
"So this is a massive, massive undertaking," said Zachary Mears, Anduril's senior vice president of strategy.
Anduril is expected to invest more than $900 million at the site. A JobsOhio grant will cover about a third of that.
He said the company started hiring this year and refabricating an existing building that will be used for manufacturing at the 500-acre Arsenal 1 complex on the southwest side of Rickenbacker International Airport.
Mears said there's more to come next year, including the actual start of manufacturing. Also in 2026, Anduril plans to add 300 new employees and build a warehouse.
"This thing will keep moving in parallel. We will open next year. We will be producing product. We will be delivering product to customer as we build the site. It is not sequential," he said.
The company plans to ramp up construction and hiring for a decade until it has 4,000 central Ohio employees spread across seven buildings.
The company plans to have one building used as a training hub in 2027.
Mears said the company expects to need employees with various levels of education.
"As we partner with those locally and across the state, both four-year, two-year and technical schools, we're going to want a place where we can continue to check (and) re-check the relevant skills that our workforces bring into our production facilities. And that will predominantly happen at the hub," Mears said.
He said people interested in working for the company can As of Wednesday, the form was accepting resumes in the following areas of interest:
- manufacturing engineer
- manufacturing leadership
- manufacturing operations
- manufacturing technician
Mears said there will be opportunities for local vendors to contract with the company.
Companies interested in finding out more information can
