Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, visited the campus’ Horton Building clean room Thursday as part of the Port Authority’s outreach to maintain the work that provides 775 jobs and an annual payroll of more than $60 million.

“There’s so much here that people don’t know enough about,” Brown said. “There’s concern about the uncertainty of what’s next, and what happens to funding of defense contractors. We’re going to make (defense) cuts, as we should.

“You really have trouble understanding these things unless you see them. They need to stay engaged with their leaders, and companies and government, and we have their back.”