Digital Reporter Sam Quine speaks to Paula Gill, the CEO of North West Aerospace Alliance who are an organisation based in Nelson, Lancashire and work closely with BAE Systems.
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00:00Q. For our readers who may be on as well-versed with the defence industry, could you give
00:05a short summary of who North West Aerospace Alliance are, maybe any link with BAE Systems,
00:11just on the kind of simple level?
00:13Absolutely. So North West Aerospace Alliance is a membership organisation that was set
00:19up for the aerospace and defence sector 30 years ago, and it's to support businesses
00:26in manufacturing that want to work in those areas. So we bridge the gap between the primary
00:32businesses and the opportunities that are afforded to the manufacturing companies, making
00:37sure that they've got the right technology, the right skills, or certainly the training
00:42or access to it, access to funding, which is really important right now because it's
00:48a bit of a minefield, all of that, particularly when we're talking about new technology. But
00:54we're also the interface as well, where small, medium businesses will never get that
01:00opportunity to access the likes of BAE. So BAE, in particular, are a partner of NWAA,
01:08as in most of the times actually support us, and they actually join us as members too,
01:13so that when we have events and we network, we ask these businesses to come along. BAE
01:19are very good at doing that, they come along very often. But within the NWAA, we set up
01:26our board, our current board, actually consists of members from primary OEM businesses, tier
01:331s to tier 2s. So we have access to most up-to-date information around technology, so we can help
01:43enhance that journey for our members, and hopefully help grow them as part of the result of that as well.