NORWICH – Unison Industries, the Norwich aerospace systems manufacturer which employs roughly 280 local residents, had words of gratitude for Congressman Mike Arcuri during the New York Democrat’s visit to Chenango on Thursday.

In a press conference held at Unison’s Town of Norwich manufacturing facility, the company’s director of operations, Gary Cummings, credited Arcuri with safeguarding local jobs through his efforts to continue federal funding for a multi-billion dollar alternative engine program spearheaded by Unison’s parent company, GE.

For more than a decade, GE has partnered with Rolls Royce in developing the F-136 fighter engine as an alternative to competitor Pratt-Whitney’s F-135 propulsion system for the F-35 joint strike fighter.

The stealth, single engine supersonic jet is being developed by Lockheed Martin to replace several existing fighter jets, including the F-14, F-16 and F/A-18. The first 30 are slated for delivery in 2012.

The alternative engine program was roughly 70 percent of the way to completion, having already received more than $2.4 billion in federal allocations, when the program ended up on the chopping block in the 2010 Presidential Budget, Cummings said.