By Eric Schwartzberg

Senator Rob Portman said his visit to a high-tech Mason company Tuesday served two-fold for the recently sworn-in Ohio Republican.

His trip to L-3 Cincinnati Electronics was to get a better understanding of Ohio’s shifting financial landscape and to find out how he could help retain private jobs serving government.

“There are a lot of good paying, high technology jobs here and ... they’re doing cutting edge work here, not just regionally or nationally but globally, Portman said. “Many of these jobs are dependent on contracts the company has with the Department of Defense, the Homeland Security Department and NASA. I wanted to get up to speed on exactly what they are doing for these federal entities and do everything I can to ensure that we not only retain these good jobs but we try to expand what we’re doing here.”

The Mason company, which employs 620 people, offers high-tech engineering services and manufactures electronics equipment for both government and civilian purposes.

Portman split his time during the 90-minute morning visit between a closed-door presentation and a guided tour of the sprawling Innovation Way facility.

During the tour, L-3 President James Wimmers highlighted a variety of products the company manufactures, including longrange infrared imaging system to maintain border security, gun sights for amphibious assault vehicles, launch vehicle electronics for spacecraft and semi-conductor processing for the Joint Strike Fighter Program.

Wimmers also showed Portman a 30,000-square-foot addition now under construction to expand semi-conductor production, creating up to 50 new jobs by the end of 2012 and 150 jobs in the next six to seven years.

Portman said one of the results of his visit will be to return to Washington, D.C., and encourage the administration to clarify its direction and make a more efficient use of taxpayer dollars.

“NASA and the administration and Congress haven’t always been on the same page the past couple of years so one thing they’re looking for here is certainty,” he said. “They need to know what direction we’re going so they can be sure to retain the expertise, the engineers and the significant taxpayer investment into the technology.

“When you turn programs on, turn them off and turn them back on again...it’s pretty disruptive and pretty expensive.”

Wimmers said L-3 is hoping for a transfer in funding from the canceled Constellation Program, which would have transported astronauts into space, to the Space Launch System Program when the new federal budget is issued this March.

“All the work that we did in support for the Constellation Program will be lost if they don’t provide continuing funding when the new budget comes out,” Wimmers said.

Also lost will be $12 million in annual revenue and 35 to 50 engineering jobs, he said.

Wimmers said he used the visit to make Portman aware of economic stimulus dollars being used to fund various programs with the high-tech part of the equation being spent outside of the country.