RALEIGH - Lieutenant Governor Dan Forrest recently flew to an air show in Paris to promote North Carolina's aerospace industries to companies worldwide.

“The Paris air show is fascinating. It’s two days at the air show with probably 40 meetings set up over those two days with presidents, CEOs, chairmen of the board[s] of the top...aeronautics [and] aerospace companies in the world.”

Forrest says that the number one reason employers like North Carolina is because it’s a right to work state. “The unions don’t control things in North Carolina and so when you’re talking about setting up a manufacturing organization, you want to do it in a right to work state.”

The lieutenant governor says manufacturers like North Carolina because of its workforce and community college system. “North Carolina is a great state… We have a strong workforce [and] unemployment certainly helps when you’re trying to attract companies that need workers at a certain skill level. They love our community college system. They love the idea of the community college system jumping through hoops to come in and help train their employees.”

He says that GE in Asheville has developed a new, innovative technology for airplane engines. “They’ve developed this ceramic composite material that they’ll be building airplane engines out of and it’s very innovative for North Carolina. Being the first in flight state…taking these kinds of innovations is what we should be pursuing.”