{"id":206170,"date":"2026-04-22T16:45:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T16:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/206170\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T16:45:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T16:45:36","slug":"defense-contractor-plans-multi-million-dollar-facility-in-massena","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/206170\/","title":{"rendered":"Defense contractor plans multi-million dollar facility in Massena"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">POTSDAM, New York (WWNY) &#8211; A U.S. military contractor is looking to expand operations to Massena with a facility that would house research, defense manufacturing and an AI computing center.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Ombra provides smart technology for the Department of Defense. The company has an office in Potsdam and draws local talent from nearby universities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">It also has a facility in Tampa, Florida.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Massena native Mike Fieldson owns the company. He plans to build a 75,000-square-foot facility that he expects will create 50 permanent jobs.<\/p>\n<p>EAGLE drone shipped to Army<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The company recently shipped its EAGLE drone, technology created to locate enemy radar locations, to U.S. Army Special Forces in North Carolina. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe shipped the major components last Friday and shipped the rest of the components this Monday,\u201d Fieldson said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The drone was assembled at the company\u2019s Florida facility. Fieldson plans to build future projects in the North Country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe also draw students from the University of South Florida, so we\u2019ll continue to have that presence here, but what I think you\u2019ll see is more and more hiring will be in the north country,\u201d Fieldson said.<\/p>\n<p>Seeking low-cost hydropower<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Fieldson wants to get 2 megawatts of low-cost electricity through St. Lawrence County\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/slcida.com\/rvrda\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/slcida.com\/rvrda\/\">Economic Development Power Program<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The program allocates 20 megawatts of hydropower from the St. Lawrence-Franklin D. Roosevelt Power Project in Massena to support business growth in the area.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">He said he has support from state and federal representatives.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cThat 20 megawatts was intended to bring back jobs to the local area, but really has been underused, so that\u2019s why we\u2019ll be there. We have an application in to get a slice of that power that will help power the campus that we\u2019re building,\u201d Fieldson said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Fieldson expects the project to cost tens of millions of dollars.<\/p>\n<p>Town supervisor cautious<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Town Supervisor Ray Lancto said he is pleased to hear of any potential investment coming to the area, but wants to look out for the town.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cAs much as we want the good-paying jobs, we\u2019re also being cautious, and we\u2019re also looking into the companies, making sure they\u2019re viable and sustainable,\u201d Lancto said. \u201cA lot of companies want to move here because of our resources.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The project has not yet gone before local planning boards. Fieldson said he will be in Massena next week to discuss the project with officials.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">He is eyeing the former GM plant or the old Massena mall as locations. The project will have to go through the usual planning process first.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 WWNY. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"POTSDAM, New York (WWNY) &#8211; A U.S. military contractor is looking to expand operations to Massena with a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3587,1650,81749,9,11,10,49,51,50,81748],"class_list":{"0":"post-206170","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-expansion","9":"tag-massena","10":"tag-mike-fieldson","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-news","14":"tag-new-york-state","15":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","16":"tag-new-york-state-news","17":"tag-ombra"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}