Park Aerospace Corp. Reports Storm Damage to Its Newton, Kansas Manufacturing Facilities

NEWTON, Kan., May 22, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Park Aerospace Corp. (NYSE-PKE) reported that, on Sunday, May 19, at approximately 8:00 pm local time, the Company’s Newton, Kansas manufacturing facilities were damaged by a strong storm which transitioned the area. None of the Company’s manufacturing lines or equipment were damaged by the storm. Although the building structures are secure, it is likely that the roofs on all three buildings in the Company’s Newton, Kansas campus will ultimately need to be replaced. Also, multiple specialty HVAC units were damaged or destroyed. These specialty HVAC units are necessary to control the temperature and humidity in certain of the manufacturing rooms and the production and R&D laboratories, which is required by certain specifications and certifications the Company is subject to. The Company is currently working with multiple contractors on site in order to fully assess the damage and the remediation options.

Although the Company is still in the process of assessing the situation, the Company believes the film and tape lines located in the recently completed factory expansion will be brought back on line this week, the film and tape lines in the original factory will be brought back on line next week and the “solution” treater lines will be returned to service the following week, at which point all manufacturing lines will have fully returned to service. The Company plans to employ certain temporary measures in order to return its manufacturing lines to full service as soon as possible, including the use of temporary HVAC equipment, but it will take the Company a number of months to permanently repair or replace all of the damaged facilities and infrastructure equipment. At this time, the Company does not have an estimate of the costs of the repairs and final remediation.

The Company does not expect to lose any business or sales as a result of the storm damage, but an unknown amount of sales will slip from the Company’s FY2025 Q1 (which ends June 2, 2024) to the Company’s FY2025 Q2. The Company may be able to provide additional information about the amount of sales which will slip from FY2025 Q1 to FY2025 Q2 during the Company’s FY2024 Q4 investor call next week.

Brian Shore, Park’s Chairman and CEO, said, “For those of you who know Park and our People, you will not be surprised to hear that our People are doing an outstanding job of dealing with this unexpected challenge. No complaining. No whining. Just sucking it up and relentlessly attacking the challenges as our People always do. That is how our People do it. Also, the most important thing I am very pleased to tell you is that none of our Park employees or their family members were injured by the storm.”

Park Aerospace Corp. develops and manufactures solution and hot-melt advanced composite materials used to produce composite structures for the global aerospace markets. Park’s advanced composite materials include film adhesives (Aeroadhere®) and lightning strike protection materials (Electroglide®). Park offers an array of composite materials specifically designed for hand lay-up or automated fiber placement (AFP) manufacturing applications. Park’s advanced composite materials are used to produce primary and secondary structures for jet engines, large and regional transport aircraft, military aircraft, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs commonly referred to as “drones”), business jets, general aviation aircraft and rotary wing aircraft. Park also offers specialty ablative materials for rocket motors and nozzles and specially designed materials for radome applications. As a complement to Park’s advanced composite materials offering, Park designs and fabricates composite parts, structures and assemblies and low volume tooling for the aerospace industry. Target markets for Park’s composite parts and structures (which include Park’s proprietary composite SigmaStrut™ and AlphaStrut™ product lines) are, among others, prototype and development aircraft, special mission aircraft, spares for legacy military and civilian aircraft and exotic spacecraft. Park’s objective is to do what others are either unwilling or unable to do. When nobody else wants to do it because it is too difficult, too small or too annoying, sign us up.

Additional corporate information is available on the Company’s website at www.parkaerospace.com.

Bay Street News