Invasion of the United States

According to Zhou Qingfeng's instructions, Kelly's first task after acquiring the "Electric Flight" company was to swiftly expand the R&D and testing teams, with plans to double the staff size.

After paying the suppliers and subcontractors, she demanded an accelerated production schedule to deliver ten sets of aircraft components as quickly as possible for rapid iteration and optimization.

Kelly initially expected that these tasks would take at least a month or two to complete.

After all, in the United States, recruiting dozens of physically fit, technically skilled, and clean-background STEM talents is no easy feat.

However, in "Dongda," she truly felt that this country operated like a finely-tuned machine, running extremely efficiently — from an outsider's perspective, it could be frightening.

First of all, Kelly's recruitment needs were met within just one day.

Head-hunting companies provided three times the required number of resumes for her to screen within half an hour, even easily meeting her demand that "one-third of the employees must be female."

Women in STEM and manufacturing are relatively rare in the United States.

The reason behind this smooth process is quite simple.

'Electric Flight' offered highly competitive base monthly salaries: $15,000 for bachelor's, $24,000 for master's, and negotiable for doctorates based on capabilities.

Although these numbers are not exceptionally high, when even the cleaning staff could earn an 8,000 monthly salary, the entire company's morale skyrocketed instantly.

Kelly was quite surprised by the sudden burst of work enthusiasm within the company. She had been in the financial industry for too long and was experiencing the manufacturing sector for the first time, discovering something new and exciting every day.

When she was willing to spend money, suppliers were eager to fall at her feet. To secure orders, they were even willing to integrate their R&D systems with 'Electric Flight.'

For example, the current prototype used 36 small electric motor fans for power, which had a low thrust-to-weight ratio problem.

The best solution was to replace them with larger fans, reducing dead weight while allowing the power to tilt like the 'Osprey,' enabling quick and safe transitions between vertical takeoff and high-speed flight.

This idea was easier said than done.

However, when Kelly expressed her willingness to invest over $100 million in R&D, research institutes in Shanghai immediately stepped forward to collaborate.

The morning's requirements could be addressed by the afternoon — by comparison, the United States manufacturing sector considered it highly efficient if it responded within a week.

No response for a month was also normal — a critical position employee might be on vacation, causing their work to be stalled.

As for Kelly's commercial management abilities, which she had always been proud of, they were thoroughly surpassed by the efficiency and execution capabilities of domestic employees.

Marco commented, "As long as the money is in place, you can find the world's top talents, the best supply chains, and the finest products in 'Dongda.'

Kelly could only respond with a wry smile, "You indeed have many excellent and hardworking talents, which is really rare in the United States."

In her heart, Kelly would also silently think, "Although those senators in Congress are useless, they're certainly right about trying to curb 'Dongda.' Their development speed is too fast."

She came to this conclusion upon discovering that the company's R&D personnel were willing to work late into the night for double overtime pay.

As a result, she had to set new regulations limiting employees' overtime to ten hours per week.

If this affected work progress, she would rather choose to continue expanding the recruitment.

"No wonder that blonde president keeps shouting 'China, China.' If I were president, I would also be intimidated by this country's work efficiency," Kelly sighed.

"'Dongda's' products are flooding the market like a deluge. Do other countries have any other options except to set up trade barriers?" Note: Check M_VLEMPY_R for any corrections.

She looked at the rough schedule provided by Zhou Qingfeng, realizing that the team expansion for 'Electric Flight' was far from over; this was just the beginning.

According to Zhou Qingfeng's vision, before the end times arrive, the company needs to spend as much money as possible to help domestic employees save more for the difficult times ahead.

Therefore, 'Electric Flight' would continue to expand over the next six months, growing from dozens to hundreds, and eventually reaching a thousand employees.

As for product orders, one hundred aircraft would only be the beginning. Once a mature product model was available, orders would directly leap to a thousand units.

The crucial factors being low price, ease of operation, and simple maintenance.

Low-flying aircraft would not only have enormous demand in the apocalyptic period, but even in times of peace, they could become potential markets in many underdeveloped regions around the world, such as South America and Africa.

In any case, spending the money — the billions of dollars could not be left cheap for the Americans or left as mere numbers in the bank — spend it as much as possible.

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At night, Kelly signed a recruitment order to hire one hundred 'hardworking and professionally skilled' workers from 'Dongda' to work in Miami.

These individuals would be responsible for the preliminary testing of aircraft and the construction of commercial scenarios.

Before coming to 'Dongda,' Kelly thought these initial tasks would take at least two years and three to four hundred million dollars.

Now, it seemed that half a year would be more than enough.

Because Zhou Qingfeng's 'ambition' was quite small, he only required the construction of a logistics network around Miami, serving wealthy residents in remote areas.

It was hard for outsiders to imagine that there were tens of thousands of luxurious vacation villas on a chain of islands south of Miami, connected to Miami by only one hundred kilometers of sea island road.