Soccer fans traveling to the 2026 global soccer celebration have a reason to stop in Skagit County this summer. Six towns, including Concrete, Sedro-Woolley, Anacortes, Mount Vernon, Burlington and La Conner, have installed large block-letter signs spelling out their names built by Janicki. With Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia, hosting matches in June and July, the signs invite visitors to stop, take a photo and explore the towns between games.
How we built them
Janicki was approached by the Skagit Tourism Bureau in early 2026 to create large letters for each city’s name. Project managers and engineers developed initial concepts calling for 48-inch fiberglass letters designed to last well beyond the event. Leadership liked the direction but wanted to go bigger, and the team settled on 60-inch letters.
The process started with fabricating 40-by-10-foot composite panels using vacuum infusion, drawing vinyl ester resin through
multiple layers of fiberglass reinforcement surrounding a 1.5-inch perforated PET core. After curing, the panels moved to a 12-by-40-foot waterjet, where lettering for each city was precision cut at 90,000 psi. Each letter was then edge-sanded, cleaned and sealed with a vinyl ester resin mixture to encapsulate all exposed edges, finish-sanded to 150 grit and prepared for delivery.
Manufacturing and delivering the letters required approximately 300 hours of work across multiple day and weekend shifts, with about 20 employees contributing across production, transportation and engineering.
Where they are now
The signs are installed in town parks across Skagit County, out in the open for neighbors and visitors alike. The La Conner sign is a good example of how they work. Artist Kevin Hartman decorated them with a soccer ball pattern, the phrase “WHAT WE LOVE ABOUT LA CONNER” and QR codes pointing to the Skagit Tourism Bureau. Chalk sits at the base, and the letters are meant to be drawn on. Within a day of installation, the community had already covered the sign with notes and doodles.
The Sedro-Woolley letters take a different approach. The signs are custom wrapped with imagery reflecting the town’s character, including local themes and industries. Several letters also carry soccer-related designs, among them a soccer ball O motif tying the signs back to the 2026 global soccer celebration.
Visitors are encouraged to find all six signs, take photos and post them with the hashtag #MagicSkagit for a chance to win a prize. The first of six Seattle matches, Belgium against Egypt, is scheduled for June 15.
A different kind of build
Janicki spends most of its time building composite and metallic tooling and structures for aerospace, defense, space and marine customers, work that rarely ends up somewhere the public can walk right up and touch. This project brought our work to our communities, available for anyone to lean on, write on and pose in front of.
“We’re proud to call Skagit County home,” said John Janicki, President of Janicki. “It is exciting for our employees to contribute to a project with such a lasting impact in our communities.”
The signs are a small reminder that the same team that builds for customers around the world is also part of this community. We hope visitors enjoy them, snap a few photos and take some time to see what Skagit County has to offer.
Interested in working on projects like this? Visit our Job Openings page to explore current opportunities.
Coffee and Donuts Kickoff
Intern questions ranged from navigating large corporate environments versus smaller companies to career mistakes and transitioning from engineering to management. Mike spoke about “inflection points” in his career, key moments when seizing an opportunity, gaining a new skill, or meeting the right person significantly changed his trajectory. Robbie emphasized the importance of early effort and making the most of free time to maintain work-life balance. Kevin reflected on his lifelong passion for aviation, advising interns, “Find something that gets you to jump out of bed in the morning.”
His interest in the field began at a young age. With a father who is both a civil engineer and a Navy veteran, Ethan was introduced to engineering early on and always felt it was a path he wanted to consider.
At Gonzaga, Ethan is an active member of the 
Her advice for future interns:
Cory first learned about Janicki at a career fair and was drawn to the company due to his background in composites. He saw the internship as an opportunity to deepen his technical knowledge and gain real-world experience.
His day-to-day duties vary at Janicki. Typically, he works with CAD modeling, speaks with technicians, reviews design, processes 3D printing projects and helps on the production floor. He’s involved in several projects this summer, but the main one involves creating a new modified drill jig to improve efficiency on some of the drilling operations.
In his role, Luke works closely with NDI technicians and engineers to define and implement tests that detect material conditions and flaws that could otherwise lead to catastrophic failure in parts. These evaluations are performed in a way that preserves the future usefulness of the object or material. In short, NDI enables inspection and measurement without causing damage.
One of Luke’s projects this summer involved designing a fixture to help rotate a part, which helped reduce both labor and time during a specific process. He said he was impressed, and at times, almost overwhelmed by the level of detail involved in every part.
Since then, she has worked on multiple projects for the space team. One of her key assignments involves designing and testing a fixture for a rocket, with a focus on pressure resistance and resolving structural issues such as bridges and wrinkles in the part.
She also emphasized the importance of understanding non-engineering aspects of a project, including planning and budgeting. Her advice for future interns: Ask questions frequently and come in with a basic understanding of composite materials.
On campus, Rachel is a member of the Baja SAE team, where she works in the machine shop making parts for an off-road vehicle the team builds from the ground up. That hands-on experience has translated well into her internship this summer.
At Janicki, Hunter’s favorite part is the people and the company’s broad capabilities. He appreciates that Janicki has a hand in so many different markets, making it a dream place to intern for undergraduate students who are figuring out what they like and want to go into in the future. He spoke highly of his team’s support, noting how helpful and open they are when he has questions and when correcting his mistakes.
One thing that surprised him about engineering was the practical role of an engineer. The jump from the classroom to on-the-job engineering was different than he was expecting. Hunter said that it’s more about keeping processes going, making little tweaks, and solving problems rather than theoretical classroom material. He talked about how he’s developing what he calls his engineering “knack.”
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