The Danish Minister for Industry, Business and Financial Affairs, Brian Mikkelsen, visited Washington D.C. and Fort Worth in Texas in the beginning of March. Here Minister Mikkelsen met up with some of the largest Danish Defense Companies based in the US.
“It is important for Denmark to have relations to the United States Defense Industry because it’s the world’s biggest market. I can help establishing the right connections,” Minister Brian Mikkelsen said just before entering the defense meeting hosted by Terma North America in Washington D.C.
Attending the meeting was also Systematic, Weibel and GomSpace. The agenda was to discuss the current and future business opportunities for Danish defense materiel in the US. The future holds a close cooperation within the Danish Defense companies to secure the best products on the market, if you ask CEO and President of Terma North America, Steve Williams:
“I like to call it Team Denmark – it is not only about one company, it’s about all the companies that work together. We have very important parts of what customers need at Terma but when we combines those with our other industrial partners we becomes a team that brings that affordability, value proposition that our customers need,” Steve Williams said.
“Meget opløftende hvor dygtige underleverandører vi har til det amerikanske forsvar. Terma var vært for en arbejdsfrokost hvor jeg blev præsenteret for Team Danmarks indsats i USA. dkpol #defense #forsvar #DenmarkinUSA,” Minister Mikkelsen tweeted after the meeting.
Video from the defense meeting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZlNTuHUooA
Brian Mikkelsen also attended a meeting with Marrilyn Hewson President and CEO at Lockheed Martin before flying south.
Signing of Danish internship program with Lockheed Martin
After two days in Washington the minister’s visit continued on to Fort Worth, Texas, where Lockheed Martin’s production facilities is situated.
Here he attended the signing of a brand new cooperation agreement that will provide Danish interns to Lockheed Martin for eight weeks of internship. The students will amongst other things receive training in programming – a competence much needed in Denmark. The partners in this cooperation are the Danish Industry Association, the Danish Metal Association and Multicut – and of course Lockheed Martin.
Minister Mikkelsen afterwards went on a guided tour to learn more about the production facilities and maintenance of the F-35 that Lockheed Martin is the main producer of. F-35 is Denmark’s newest investment within defense and Danish Terma A/S also delivers many parts for this aircraft.