Posted on 01/04/2010 2:32:46 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Northrop Grumman Corp. plans to move its headquarters to the Washington, D.C., area from Los Angeles, a historic departure from the aerospace and defense industry's birthplace in Southern California.
The move will put Northrop's top executives near its biggest military and intelligence customers in the federal government, as well as Congress.
"We are a global security company and when you look at where our largest customer base is located, it's in the Washington, D.C region," said Wesley Bush, Northrop's chief executive officer and president. Mr. Bush took over as chief executive from Ron Sugar on Jan. 1.
The decision follows a broader corporate migration from Southern California—including Hilton Hotels Corp. and SAIC Inc.—that leaves the second-largest city in the U.S. with a slackening grip on coveted corporate headquarters.
After World War II, the aerospace industry blossomed in Southern California, home to year-round flying weather. But since the end of the Cold War, many of the large defense contractors have merged as defense budgets shrank during the 1990s. That has left Northrop as the last remaining large defense contractor in the area.
The new headquarters, which will employ about 300 people, will open by the middle of 2011. Under consideration are sites in Virginia, Maryland or the District of Columbia. Northrop's Los Angeles headquarters houses about 350 workers currently.
The company plans to look hard at the incentives offered by the three areas before choosing a site. "It is primarily economics" that will determine who hosts the company, said Mr. Bush, who made clear that Northrop will still have 30,000 employees, or a quarter of its total staff, in California after the move.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Closer to the nipple.
Washington DC is now fast becoming the employment center of everything, from finance to defense to software.
Consider :
* Northrop Grumman’s West Coast roots go back to Northrop Aircraft Inc., which was founded in 1939 by John Northrop in Southern California. Today, it is the last major large defense contractor to be headquartered there.
* Other major defense contractors, such as Lockheed Martin Corp. and General Dynamics Corp., are also based in the Washington area.
* Northrop, which reported $33.89 billion in 2008 sales, and Boeing Co. are jockeying for position as the Pentagon’s No. 2 contractor by sales behind Lockheed Martin.
* SAIC, another government contractor focused on consulting and engineering services, last year moved its headquarters from the San Diego area to McLean, Va., not far from the headquarters of the CIA.
True, but the nipple’s always been in DC. To me as a conservative Californian, the true “story” is the flight of yet another Fortune 500 firm from my state, another refugee from high taxes and oppressive regulation.
the true “story” is the flight of yet another Fortune 500 firm from my state, another refugee from high taxes and oppressive regulation.””’’...
Yes it is . Over and over again companys leave when being taxed to death, Yet Libs keep on doing it.
Northrup LA
Grumman Bethpage, NY
Oddly, I recall seeing a small building project in Johnstown, PA with a sign ‘future site of (something branch) of Northrup Grumman.’
Hmmmm...wonder how that got there???
Oddly, I recall seeing a small building project in Johnstown, PA with a sign ‘future site of (something branch) of Northrup Grumman.’
Hmmmm...wonder how that got there???
I’ll just guess it won’t be DC or Maryland
Oh great. The lobbyists won’t have to travel as far.
RE: Grumman Bethpage, NY
That was a huge disaster for the Long Island Economy. Tens of thousands of well-paying jobs disappeared over the years. It took years to recover.
Farther from the Peoples’ Glorious Democratic Illegal Alien Ridden Republic of California.
As long as my retirement fund keeps or increases in value, I say it’s a good thing to get out of Taxifornia.
It’s just another sign of the changes in corporate culture over the past 50 years... it used to be “let’s have our executives close to the product, let’s have them understand our manufacturing processes and our engineering prowess so that they can put initiatives in place to improve our product and make a compelling case to sell an outstanding product”... now it’s “let’s have our executives close to the policymakers in Wash DC, so that we can lobby easier”.
Virginia would seem the most likely location.
To me.
But I just live here ... I don't work for N-G.
It will be VA, not DC.
I genuinely don't know ...
Yet another company leaves high tex, high regulation Galifornia. On the positive side, that overcrowding problem soon won’t seem so bad...
- JP
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