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Robert Ulibarri, vice president at the Saab facility, thanks Purdue President Mitch Daniels, who is wearing a flower crown, for speaking at the banquet.

Cups of beer sit on a table beside a candle and small American and Swedish flags.

“Discovery Park District will attract the world’s great businesses, and provide value they could not find elsewhere,” Purdue President Mitch Daniels told Midsummer attendees, holding a microphone in one hand and a flower crown in the other.

Lars Jensen, the deputy general manager of the Saab facility, wears a flower crown in celebration of Midsummer, which he called a holy day in Sweden.

People gather around tables, talking and eating, at the Saab Midsummer banquet on Thursday.

Robert Ulibarri, vice president at the Saab facility, thanks Purdue President Mitch Daniels, who is wearing a flower crown, for speaking at the banquet.

Cups of beer sit on a table beside a candle and small American and Swedish flags.

“Discovery Park District will attract the world’s great businesses, and provide value they could not find elsewhere,” Purdue President Mitch Daniels told Midsummer attendees, holding a microphone in one hand and a flower crown in the other.

Lars Jensen, the deputy general manager of the Saab facility, wears a flower crown in celebration of Midsummer, which he called a holy day in Sweden.

People gather around tables, talking and eating, at the Saab Midsummer banquet on Thursday.

“I was going to wear a flower headband, but I won’t wear it until Daniels does,” Robert Ulibarri said into the microphone last week, prompting laughs from the assembled SAAB employees sitting at round banquet tables.

Ulibarri was true to his word. President Mitch Daniels placed the flowery, Midsummer accessory on his head after gesturing with it throughout his speech, prompting Ulibarri to do the same.

Ulibarri is vice president of the newly operational SAAB facility in the Discovery Park District near campus. SAAB is a Swedish company that specializes in military defense and civil security.

The “brand-new” factory makes the back of the T-7 Red Hawk, a trainer aircraft. The facility was built in 2020, and production started in April, employee James Campbell said. The T-7 was designed in partnership with Boeing and is reportedly being sold to the U.S. Air Force.

Daniels said SAAB’s presence will “add to the economic vitality” of the region, set Purdue apart from its competition.

“Discovery Park District will attract the world’s great businesses, and provide value they could not find elsewhere,” Daniels said during his speech, flower crown in hand. “People will say Discovery Park District got started with SAAB.”

As an aside, Daniels said he had “no idea” what he is going to do after he steps down as Purdue president.

“I’m not expecting to retire. I’m stepping down from the job, but I’m sure I’ll find some way to stay busy,” he said.

The Purdue Research Foundation owns Discovery Park, said Greg Deason, senior vice president of alliances and placemaking of the PRF.

“I’m pretty proud as a citizen, and as an alum, I’m proud that Purdue is stepping up to do this,” Deason said.

Thursday’s banquet celebrated Midsummer, a traditional Swedish holiday held on the longest day of the year.

“Midsummer is celebrated after the solstice when the flowers are blooming and nature is in full effect,” Ulibarri said while welcoming his coworkers at the door. “In Sweden it comes right before a four- to five-week vacation. Not here in America, but we have a great work-life balance at SAAB.”

The celebration gave the Swedish employees a taste of home and an opportunity for everyone to “find positive ways to work through their differences,” according to Sarina Rems, a 20-year-old intern and a senior at Purdue.

“West Lafayette is the most international community for miles around,” Daniels told the group. “So many of your talented people have come from Sweden. … We are trying to be as hospitable and receptive as we possibly can.”

Employees of all levels, from assemblers to upper managers, brought their families to Thursday’s celebration. Children on their best behavior sat beside their parents, patiently waiting to serve themselves pickled herring from the buffet. There was an open bar for the adults.

Lars Jensen, the deputy general manager, described the importance of Midsummer in his home country after greeting the crowd in Swedish.

“The celebration of Midsummer is centuries old, it’s nothing new,” Jensen said. “In Sweden, there’s a long, cold, dark winter. In the summer, we just can’t get enough of being outdoors.”

He said north of the Arctic Circle in Sweden, the sun never sets during the summer. Jensen said Midsummer is a Holy Day. One must eat pickled herring and strawberries, either with cream and sugar, or as a cake.

It is also traditional, Jensen said, to go out and pick seven different types of wildflowers and put them under your pillow so that you have good dreams.

Ulibarri told the crowd that they would also get to participate in “frog dancing,” but Exponent reporters were not allowed to stay that long.

Greg Talberts, a quality manager, was sitting with his wife, Tanya. Tanya held their 15-month-old son, Roy, who kept attempting to grab a reporter’s pencil.

“SAAB has been in the business for 100 years,” Greg Talberts said. “I’m excited to be involved and start from the ground up.”

It is Talberts’ job to ensure that “the right procedures and training are in place.”

Deason said Discovery District Park’s 5G “Wi-Fi overlay” enables companies like SAAB to do better lab work. Discovery District Park is a 6G testing ground.

Daniels said the Discovery Park District is “the best 6G testing ground anywhere.” He said the 5G network and the 6G testing were attractive when Purdue was trying to lure SAAB to Discovery Park.

“This is one of the great moments along the path of our greatest project,” Daniels said. “We could attract world-class companies for our students and faculty.”

Dario Salazer, 26, was sitting with a group of his fellow employees. Salazer said he is excited because the T-7 is the first of their jets to be built from a digital design.

James Campbell, 28, also at the table, said Purdue is a good place for manufacturing and engineering. He said his first few months at SAAB have consisted of “testing our processes, getting our tooling all in a line, and doing it to their standards.”

He also said the Purdue facility has done a “good job” of adopting the Swedish style of manufacturing, which is “linear” and “flat.”

Campbell said he lived in Sweden for six months for training. While he was there, the sun was up for less than four hours a day. Asked what the Swedes were like, he said, “They mostly kept to themselves.”

A group of Swedish employees sat at a table together. Some of them have moved to Indiana, while some will be here for only a few months to train employees at the new facility.

When Simon Sandell, 28, was asked what he thinks about the States, he waved his hand and said in accented English, “New country, new people, you know?”

He said his favorite restaurant here is Longhorn. But Frans Phil, a Swedish assembler who has been here for a month and a half, joked that his favorite restaurant here is Taco Bell, which prompted laughs, but he corrected himself; it’s really Panda Express.

Garrett Malmborg, a 20-year-old aerospace engineering major and junior at Purdue, said his internship consists of entering tool numbers into an online program.

“It’s kind of cool knowing you’re working on an aircraft,” Malmborg said.

Garret Lee, a 21-year-old senior, says he is working on automating entering data, mostly part numbers, into SAAB’s Enterprise Resource Planning System.

“I can’t talk about a lot of stuff because we’re in defense, you know?” Lee said.

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