John Fry: building Australia's first missile factory in the Hunter
About this episode
John Fry discusses the establishment of Australia's first missile factory in the Hunter region and its implications for local jobs and the defense industry.
Australia is about to build guided missiles for the first time — and Kongsberg is doing it at Williamtown, in the Hunter. John Fry, Managing Director of Kongsberg Defence Australia, joins James MacDonald for the first episode of Engineering in the Hunter to explain what's being built, why a 210-year-old Norwegian company chose Newcastle over 40 other sites, and what it means for the region: roughly 100 factory jobs, a supply chain that reaches far wider, and a genuine pathway from the University of Newcastle and TAFE into work being done on a world stage. In this episode: What Kongsberg is building at Williamtown: the Naval Strike Missile and Joint Strike Missile — two 5th-generation cruise missiles — in the company's first missile factory outside Norway, ever. The $850m the Commonwealth committed in August 2024 to manufacture and maintain those missiles in Australia, and why sovereign weapons production suddenly mattered after COVID and Ukraine. Why the Hunter beat 40 other sites — proximity to Orchard Hills, a port and an airbase, livability, and a good university and TAFE next door. How you stand up a missile factory on the other side of the world through a pandemic — a…
More episodes of Engineering Success | A NTP Podcast
- Bret Barton: HunterNet Senior Business Advisor
- Neil Hunt: Managing Director Mineral Systems at McLanahan
- Steve Heaton: Founder at Xetla Consulting
- Annie Lacombe: Head of Engineering at MGA Thermal
- John Klinkenberg: Principal Industrial Designer at The Melt
- Christie Hayward: Boilermaker At WesTrac
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Engineering Success | A NTP Podcast podcast page.