With Kratos putting more than $120 million into facilities near Crane, where could our shop fit into the radar sustainment or hypersonics testing supply chain building around Odon?

Look now at subcontracts tied to AN/SPY-1 radar sustainment and thermal-protection materials testing, since Kratos is still building out its vendor base before IRIC and Helios reach full operation.

Have we actually run the numbers on foreign trade zone compliance costs against our real tariff exposure, or are we assuming it will help the way Electro-Spec and NTN did?

Electro-Spec and NTN both modeled their specific country-of-origin tariff exposure against the $24,000 to $60,000 annual compliance cost before committing, and that same math is the only way to know if a foreign trade zone will cover your tariff bill or just add overhead.

With Marshall County wages climbing toward V Tech Conversions' benchmark and Winnebago cutting jobs in Iowa, where does that leave our ability to hold onto skilled labor?

When one major local employer pays 165% of the county average wage, every other employer in that labor market eventually has to match it or lose workers to it, regardless of what's happening at plants in other states.

Manufacturing News TEG Daily

October 19, 2026 · Daviess · Johnson · Boone · Marshall · Porter

Indiana Foreign Trade Zone Tariffs Surge, Kratos Breaks Ground Near Crane, and Urschel Names a New President

Indiana foreign trade zone tariffs relief drives a 53% membership surge as Kratos breaks ground near Crane and Urschel names a new president in Chesterton.

Daniel BurkePublished every day

Kratos Defense broke ground on a $70 million radar and hypersonics testing complex outside Odon in Daviess County on October 14, the same week a new report confirmed Indiana foreign trade zone tariffs relief is pulling in manufacturers statewide at a 53% two-year membership growth rate. Plymouth's labor market is tightening despite historically low unemployment, Winnebago cut another 51 jobs in Iowa with implications for its Middlebury, Indiana towable-RV plant, and Chesterton's Urschel Laboratories named its first outside president in company history.

01Daviess

Kratos Breaks Ground on $70 Million Radar and Hypersonics Complex Near Crane

Kratos Defense and Rocket Support Services held a groundbreaking ceremony on October 14 at Westgate Academy in Odon for two new facilities tied to NSWC Crane. The Indiana Radar Integration Complex, a 183,000-square-foot plant, will repair, test and sustain the Navy's AN/SPY-1 radar system. The adjacent Helios Arc Jet and Laser Facility pairs a 20 to 25 megawatt arc jet with a 200-kilowatt fiber laser to test thermal-protection materials for hypersonic vehicles.

Impact: This isn't just capex, it's Kratos positioning itself as a non-OEM alternative to Raytheon, which has dominated SPY-1 sustainment but is pouring $800 million into doubling SPY-6 production under a $1.8 billion Navy contract extension, making it commercially rational for Raytheon to quietly cede the sunset SPY-1 market. IRIC's location, within roughly 1.5 miles of NSWC Crane, effectively functions as a quasi-depot annex that could extend the service life of older Burke and Ticonderoga hulls that can't support SPY-6's power demands, pushing fleet retirements further out. Combined with Kratos' prior $50 million IPIF facility and a separate Bloomfield energetics plant, the company has now committed well over $120 million in private capital to a single cluster around Crane, an unusual concentration with no close parallel in the current IBAS portfolio.
Watch: Watch for whether Kratos or the Pentagon reconciles the $35 million IBAS figure in this release against the $68.3 million Helios contract originally announced in October 2025, a financing discrepancy nobody has yet explained publicly.
For the huddle: If Kratos is building a vertically integrated ground-to-flight-test pipeline at Crane, are there sustainment or materials-testing subcontracts in that supply chain our shop should be bidding into now, before the facility is fully operational?

SourcesKratos begins construction of Indiana facilities for Navy AN/SPY-1 radar sustainment and hypersonic materials testing (defence-industry.eu)

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02Johnson · Boone

Indiana Foreign Trade Zone Tariffs Relief Drives a 53% Membership Surge

Operator membership in the Greater Indianapolis Foreign Trade Zone is up 32% over two years to 29 companies, with 19 more applying, and membership across Indiana's six foreign trade zones has climbed 53% statewide, according to zone general manager Anita Ford. Franklin-based electroplater Electro-Spec says the designation it obtained in late 2025 solved nearly all the tariff problems that once threatened half its revenue from 10% to 25% tariffs tied to France and China. NTN Bearing Corp.'s Whitestown warehouse uses its own foreign trade zone status to defer tariffs on parts bound for John Deere, Caterpillar, Subaru, Ford and Honda, even as NTN's Driveshaft division closes its Columbus plant and sues for a share of an estimated $130 billion in federal duty refunds.

Impact: The NTN story has a hidden contradiction: while its Whitestown warehouse touts FTZ cash-flow relief, NTN Driveshaft is simultaneously closing its Columbus CVJ East Plant and suing in the U.S. Court of International Trade for a share of an estimated $130 billion in IEEPA duty refunds, meaning FTZ membership is functioning as a coping mechanism at the warehouse while the manufacturing side contracts and litigates. Meanwhile GE has filed its own FTZ production authorization at its Lafayette facility and Subaru of Indiana Automotive has filed one covering lithium-ion batteries and electric inverters, showing the zone is becoming an EV-supply-chain tool, not just legacy tariff arbitrage. Conexus Indiana's Bryce Carpenter calls FTZ relief 'aspirin for a broken arm' for companies that are 'losing, like, tens of millions of dollars a month in tariffs,' and the $24,000-$60,000 annual compliance cost is creating a two-tier landscape where smaller suppliers can't access the same relief as NTN or GE.
Watch: Watch the U.S. Court of International Trade docket on NTN's IEEPA duty-refund suit and the Columbus CVJ East Plant closure timeline over the next 18-24 months as the real test of whether FTZ status is a hedge or just a band-aid.
For the huddle: Have we actually modeled the $24,000-$60,000 annual FTZ compliance cost against our specific country-of-origin tariff exposure, or are we assuming it would help without running the numbers Electro-Spec and NTN did?

SourcesAppeal of foreign trade zones grows amid tariff uncertainty (english.news.cn)

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03Marshall

Marshall County's Labor Pool Shrinks Even as Unemployment Hits 3.2%

Marshall County Economic Development Corporation President and CEO Greg Hildebrand's third-quarter update shows county unemployment at 3.2% in August, below Indiana's 3.6% and the national 4.2%, but the labor force itself shrank 0.6% from August 2025. Diesel is running about $7 a gallon locally and the 30-year mortgage rate has climbed to 7.28%. MCEDC is partnering with Purdue MEP on maintenance training, running a quarterly Industrial Working Group and conducting a Countywide Infrastructure and Utility Study, a required step before the county can qualify for Indiana's Site Certified program and compete for larger state-referred projects.

Impact: Marshall County is competing for a narrower slice of the state's attraction pipeline because Boone County's LEAP district is absorbing outsized IEDC attention, and locally Plymouth-based V Tech Conversions is already paying 165% of the county average wage, setting a benchmark incumbent employers will have to match or lose workers to. The Countywide Infrastructure and Utility Study matters more than it sounds: it's a prerequisite for Indiana's Site Certified program, meaning until it's complete, Marshall County likely can't compete for the largest IEDC-referred deals. There's also a quiet dependency risk: Purdue MEP, the county's named training partner, only secured federal NIST funding through a near-miss 2025 cancellation, so the workforce strategy rests on a federally precarious partner.
Watch: Watch for completion of the Countywide Infrastructure and Utility Study, which could move Marshall County into a higher IEDC Site Certified tier and unlock larger attraction projects.
For the huddle: With V Tech Conversions now setting a 165%-of-average wage floor in Plymouth, can we retain maintenance and skilled-trades staff without matching that benchmark, or do we need to get ahead of it now?

SourcesMarshall County Economic Development Corporation delivers third-quarter update: Low unemployment, workforce challenges ahead (giant.fm)

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04Statewide

Winnebago Cuts 51 More Jobs in Iowa While Indiana's Middlebury Plant Keeps Running

According to an October 9 WARN notice, Winnebago Industries plans to cut 51 jobs at its Forest City, Iowa, specialty vehicles facility effective November 9, pushing that site's 2026 workforce reductions to 78 and bringing the company's total layoffs since 2025 (which include the closure of two Iowa plants) above 300. The company points to falling consumer demand and dealer inventory levels alongside new tariffs on Canadian and Mexican inputs like plywood, plastics and wiring. Winnebago still builds motorhomes in Forest City and towable RVs in Middlebury, Indiana, which remains untouched by this round of cuts.

Impact: The overlooked detail here is that the WARN notice hits Winnebago's Specialty Vehicles division, mobile clinics, bloodmobiles and bookmobiles sold to government and institutional buyers on multi-year procurement cycles largely insulated from consumer RV demand, not its motorhome lines, suggesting Winnebago may be quietly de-prioritizing or winding down that unit rather than just reacting to soft retail demand. That raises an unanswered question about the company's February 2024 partnership with Xos Inc. to build a fully electric specialty vehicle chassis, a program whose status has gone unreported amid the cuts. Competitor Thor Industries is running the identical playbook, cutting roughly 1,300 U.S. jobs in fiscal 2026 and consolidating brands under new North American RV leadership, confirming this is an industry-wide retrenchment, not a Winnebago-specific stumble.
Watch: Watch Winnebago's Q4 fiscal 2026 earnings release on Oct. 21 for any disclosure on the Specialty Vehicles division's order backlog or the status of the Xos electric chassis program.
For the huddle: Given Middlebury, Indiana is Winnebago's remaining towable production hub, are we tracking supplier and labor-market signals there even though this specific round of cuts landed in Iowa?

SourcesMore layoffs hit iconic Iowa manufacturer amid restructuring, tariffs (desmoinesregister.com)

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05Porter

Urschel Laboratories Names Tim Crammer President in Chesterton

Chesterton-based Urschel Laboratories named Tim Crammer president effective October 12, working alongside fourth-generation CEO Rick Urschel. Crammer spent nearly 20 years at Henny Penny Corporation, most recently as senior vice president of operations and manufacturing, and helped lead Henny Penny's 2015 transition to an employee stock ownership plan, the same year Urschel itself became employee-owned. Henny Penny completed its own ESOP transition in 2014 and executed a structured CEO handoff a decade later, in 2024, with the outgoing CEO moving to executive chairman, and Crammer sat on Henny Penny's leadership team during that transition.

Impact: This mirrors Henny Penny's own succession playbook almost exactly: Henny Penny completed its ESOP transition in 2014 and executed a structured CEO handoff roughly a decade later in April 2024, with the outgoing CEO moving to executive chairman. Urschel completed its ESOP around 2016 and is now, a decade later, hiring its first outside president while Rick Urschel keeps the CEO title, and Crammer personally sat on Henny Penny's leadership team during that succession, strongly suggesting this is staging for a 3-to-5-year CEO transition rather than a routine operations hire. It also comes as JBT Marel's $3.9 billion merger builds full-line, cross-selling equipment solutions that Urschel's pure-play cutting niche doesn't yet match, making Crammer's supply-chain and services background a direct response to that competitive pressure.
Watch: Watch for any signal in coming quarters that Rick Urschel sets a timeline for fuller CEO succession, following the Henny Penny precedent Crammer helped execute.
For the huddle: As more Indiana manufacturers adopt ESOP ownership, does our own leadership succession plan need the kind of multi-year, outside-operator glide path Urschel and Henny Penny both used?

SourcesUrschel Laboratories Appoints Tim Crammer as President (potatopro.com)

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