When an F-35 Lightning II fighter jet streaked across the sky at the 2017 Melbourne Air & Space Show, Harris Corporation technology soared with it.

When NOAA’s GOES-16 weather satellite blasted off from Kennedy Space Center and started beaming back the most detailed weather images ever transmitted from space, it did it with instruments built by Harris.

And when Miami air traffic controllers started using the new, safer and more efficient DataComm digital communications technology to connect with pilots, they did it with Harris capabilities.

These are just a few of the major technical achievements made possible by Harris, one of Florida’s largest technology companies. And these successes are the reason Harris is hiring more and more Floridians to meet the requirements of some of the most mission-critical programs in the world.

At any time, Harris Corporation has between 200 and 300 job openings in Florida, and about 19 percent of new hires each year come from state colleges and universities. The company’s world headquarters is in Melbourne, while two of three business segments are headquartered in Palm Bay, also in Brevard County. In all, Harris employs more than 6,300 people at 18 locations in the state.

Harris also spends about $200 million annually doing business with more than 1,000 Florida supplier and vendor companies.

The programs that are doing this hiring read like a high-tech roll call – satellites, space antennas, space payloads and electronics, space and range ground systems, military airborne radios, robotics, environmental data collection, U.S. military satellite communications, FAA telecommunications, Geiger-mode LiDAR, electronic warfare and many others.

MyFloridaNet-2, which links 4,000 State of Florida sites and provides 4,700 connections through a state-wide communications infrastructure, employs many Floridians. This vital network connects public safety, law enforcement, public schools and other state and local government agencies.

And then there’s the F-35. In a facility near the banks of the Indian River Lagoon in Malabar, Harris employees build avionics racks and power supplies for all aircraft mission systems, network interface systems and antennas and datalink components. In each Lightning II there are more than 1,500 module components, 58 network interface units, 21 power supplies, six advanced antenna arrays and three antenna interface units made in Florida.

Harris builds technology to connect, inform and protect the world, and thousands of Floridians make it happen every day.