Article 1: Sunnyvale plant's glory days dimmed
BY SCOTT HERHOLD
Mercury News Staff Writer
Saturday, November 13, 1999
Article 2: Leaner, meaner look is in works for Lockheed
BY MICHELLE QUINN
Mercury News Staff Writer
Saturday, November 13, 1999
Article
3: Defense dollars fade as valley booms. High-tech expansion
offers new jobs, reshape firms
Sunday, November 28, 1999
BY PETE CAREY
AND MATT MARSHALL
Mercury News Staff Writers
Sunnyvale plant's glory days dimmed
BY SCOTT HERHOLD
Mercury News Staff Writer
At its industrial campus in northern
Sunnyvale, the sprawling buildings
of Lockheed
Martin's Missiles & Space operation still
dominate the landscape but
now seem subdued,
lacking the explosive bustle of what was once
Silicon Valley's largest private
employer.
The division that served as a major stimulant
for the valley's infant electronics
industry is
now a shadow of its former self. Today, it
employs only 7,850 in the Bay
Area, well
below its peak of nearly 25,000 during the
height of President Reagan's
military buildup
in the mid-1980s.
Its successes are almost as well-known as
Detroit's automobiles: the
Trident and Polaris
missiles for the Navy, the Agena satellite
for the Air Force, the Hubble
Space Telescope.
And its stumbles, too, rival Detroit's. Just
last month, the company announced
it would
earn only $1 per share next year, less than
half of what it had predicted.
But some of Lockheed's most significant
achievements have come as byproducts.
It has
played a less well-known and but critical
role in the development of
early semiconductor
chips and such technologies as cellular
wireless systems.
In the 1960s, Lockheed's need for solid state
components that wouldn't break
apart in
the harsh environment of a space launch
provided an early source of
demand for the
valley's nascent semiconductor industry.
Later, Lockheed developed digital signal
processing, a technology initially
used for
electronic eavesdropping. With modifications,
it became the technology behind
cellular
phones.
Lockheed even delved into the arena of
information management, founding
Dialog,
which was later acquired by Knight Ridder and
since has been sold to British
interests.
At its peak, Lockheed was the largest private
employer in the valley. As
its military
contracts rose and fell, the Sunnyvale
division had the power to profoundly
affect the
local economy, shaping even its traffic.
But with the boom in personal computers
starting in the late 1970s,
the valley became
less dependent on military contracts. Though
Lockheed's drop in employment
was a big
part of the last recession in 1991, it did
not have quite the sting that
earlier layoffs did
during previous recessions. Many Lockheed
engineers found work elsewhere.
``That whole industry has gotten more and
more electronic every year,''
said Richard
Carlson, an economist with Spectrum Economics
in Palo Alto. ``That means
that more
and more people have an easier time to shift.''
The Sunnyvale operations got their start in
late 1955, when Lockheed Aircraft
Corp.
bought a 275-acre tract near Sunnyvale for
its Bay Area expansion. But
there were clues
that the aircraft supplier, famous for
building the Elektra airplane
that Amelia Earhart took
on her last flight, was at the beginning of a
sharp ascent.
In 1956, the Sunnyvale division -- known then
as the Missiles Systems Division
-- was
named the major contractor for the Polaris, a
new intermediate ballistic
missile being
developed by the Navy.
The American investment in satellites
received a huge boost in October
1957, when the
Soviet Union surprised the world by launching
its Sputnik craft. Worried
that the
Russians were winning the race to dominate
space, all three branches of
the military
poured money into new Lockheed developments.
The Lockheed engineers desperately needed
lightweight and durable circuitry
for their
new generation of missiles. And that led to
the growth of the first integrated
circuits -- or
chips -- at Fairchild Semiconductor, founded
by the so-called ``traitorous
eight,'' the
engineers who had left Shockley Labs.
``That early research was funded by the Army
Signal Corps, which was sneaking
contracts to places like Fairchild,'' says
economist Carlson, who once
researched the
subject. ``All the big money was going to
outfits like GE, which was
developing a
goddawful technique.''
Lockheed flourished with its contracts for
the Polaris and its successor,
the Trident
missile. And the Air Force's Agena satellite,
also developed by Lockheed,
became a
reliable workhorse in space on various NASA
projects. Over the last four
decades, more
than 150 Lockheed-designed communications
satellites have been launched
into orbit,
including Milstar, a massive military
communications satellite system.
The Sunnyvale division reached its zenith
during the Reagan administration,
which
pushed such projects as the costly ``Star
Wars'' initiative. The company's
single most
prominent landmark was the mysterious ``Blue
Cube,'' a squarish building
that
controlled secret satellite communications.
Not every project was a success for Lockheed
engineers. The Hubble Space
Telescope,
for example, was initially crippled by a flaw
in its mirror, a problem attributed
to
equipment used by a Connecticut manufacturer.
Two years ago, a prototype Lockheed Martin
Corp. system designed to blow
up
incoming enemy missiles missed its target for
a fourth straight time. The
system, called
the Theater High Altitude Area Defense
system, or THAAD, has since
had two
successful tests.
And business, too, has been less than stellar
since the merger between Lockheed
and
Martin Marietta Corp. was announced in 1994.
In the last year, Lockheed
Martin's stock
has fallen from a high of more than $54 per
share to $19 at Friday's close.
In fact, when the company reduced its
earnings estimates at the end
of last month, it
announced the retirement of two key
officials, President Peter
Teets and military aircraft
chief James A. Blackwell.
Saturday, November 13, 1999, in the San Jose Mercury News
Leaner, meaner look is in works for Lockheed
On the bubble: Even Missiles
& Space not
exempt as parent company considers
consolidation, downsizing
or selloff. Falling profits,
loss of major contract bids
afflict contractor
BY MICHELLE QUINN
Mercury News Staff Writer
After suffering a decade of post-Cold War
cutbacks, the old warhorse
of Silicon Valley --
Lockheed Martin's Missiles & Space operation
in Sunnyvale -- is facing its
most severe
test yet.
Its parent company, Lockheed Martin Corp.,
confirmed Friday that severe
financial
pressures corporatewide are forcing it to
consider further downsizing,
consolidation with
other Lockheed Martin units or even the sale
of the Sunnyvale business formerly
known
as Lockheed Missiles & Space Corp.
The rethinking comes as part of a sweeping,
companywide review as Lockheed
Martin
fights declining profits and grapples with
the loss of major contract
bids.
In an internal memo to employees Friday,
Lockheed Martin's CEO Vance
Coffman
reasssured the troops that no decision had
been made but that every aspect
of the
sprawling defense contractor was being
evaluated. A spokesman noted
that the review
could end in no detrimental action for the
Sunnyvale operation, long considered
the
company's crown jewel.
``I think they are embarking on a bold
program,'' said Jeff Pittsburg,
an industry analyst
and president of Pittsburg Institutional Inc.
of Great Neck, N.Y.
The broadened scrutiny, reported first in
Friday's Wall Street Journal,
is just the latest
upheaval for the Bethesda, Md.-based company.
In September, the defense contractor
had announced a major restructuring that
included the planned sale of
certain businesses,
with an eye toward making its operations
leaner and more efficient.
But Sunnyvale was spared, leading analysts to
suggest it was becoming even
more
central to Lockheed Martin. A key supplier to
the Pentagon of missile-defense
systems
and military satellites, the Missiles & Space
unit has roughly $3 billion
in annual sales,
making it the largest company within Lockheed
Martin.
Earnings falling
On Oct. 28 the company predicted next year's
earnings would be sharply lower
than
expected because of setbacks across the
entire front of its $26 billion
defense and
aerospace operations. The company said next
year's profit likely would
be cut by more
than half to $1 per share from the earlier
estimate of $2.15 per share.
As a result, the company plans to ``evaluate
all of our operations'' and
assess ``the
viability of each and every component of the
Lockheed Martin Corporation,''
CEO
Coffman wrote in the Friday memo to
employees. ``Are we looking
at Marietta and
Sunnyvale? Yes. And we're looking at
virtually every facility and
operating company,
for that matter.''
Lockheed Martin has struggled over the past
few years amid the nationwide
contraction
of the defense industry. In its heyday in the
mid-1980s, the Missiles &
Space operation
employed 24,800 in the Bay Area. It now
employs 7,850 in Sunnyvale,
Palo Alto and
Santa Cruz, with nearly 2,000 jobs being
trimmed since mid-1998.
The past year has been particularly trying
for Lockheed Martin, formed
after the 1995
merger of Lockheed Corp. and Martin Marietta
Corp. Its stock was down 81
cents
Friday to close at $19, roughly one-third of
its value last November.
Other setbacks
Technical and business setbacks also have
dogged the company. The Lockheed
Titan IV
rocket, built in Denver, failed in several
satellite launches. In 1998,
the Sunnyvale
operation lost a bid to Boeing to be the lead
contractor for the National
Missile Defense
program. Earlier this year, Boeing again beat
out Lockheed Martin for a $4.5
billion
contract to supply the government with
top-secret spy satellites.
An independent review panel in September, led
by a former Lockheed Martin
executive,
said the company was suffering from
``systemic'' quality control
and management
problems, mostly from cost-cutting efforts.
In addition, Lockheed Martin
had lost the
confidence of its top customer, the Pentagon,
the panel said.
To its credit, after six misses, Lockheed
Martin's Theater-High-Altitude
Area Air
Defense System, or THAAD, missile twice
successfully intercepted and
vaporized a
mock Scud missile this year. The company also
has received 12 new commercial
satellite
orders in the past year and has built and
launched a sophisticated imaging
satellite for the
commercial market.
`Scrub down'
On Friday -- two weeks after the resignation
of two key executives -- spokesman
Hugh
Burns said Lockheed Martin officials were
going through a ``scrub down,''
evaluating
each of six business areas: Is it making a
profit? Does it deliver on
time? Is it on budget?
Do its products work?
If a division is not performing well enough,
the company could decide, among
other
things, to consolidate, downsize or sell it,
Burns said. Burns, speaking
from Bethesda,
declined to comment on Wall Street Journal
speculation that part of the
Missiles & Space
operation could be moved to other Lockheed
sites near Denver.
He also wouldn't say when the decisions would
be made, although he said they
would
happen quickly.
CEO Coffman explained the rationale behind
the companywide evaluation.
``This effort
is based on a simple business reality: If we
are . . . staffed at
a level higher than can be
justified by near-term new business
prospects, we will rapidly
price ourselves out of the
market and jeopardize our entire
corporation,'' he wrote.
No comment
Executives at the Missiles & Space business
in Sunnyvale declined to be
interviewed.
``We don't feel it's in the best interest for
anyone for us to speculate
because no final
decisions have been made,'' said Dave Waller,
a Missiles & Space spokesman.
``No one is going to get a free ride,'' said
Burns, the corporate spokesman.
``No one is
going to slide. This is real. This is hard
work. We're in a business that's
important to the
country. We're not making cornflakes.''
Contact Michelle Quinn at mquinn@sjmercury.com or
(408) 920-5749.
Defense dollars fade as valley
booms
High-tech expansion offers new jobs, reshape firms
Sunday, November 28, 1999
BY PETE CAREY
AND MATT MARSHALL
Mercury News Staff Writers
Silicon Valley's once-giant defense industry,
overshadowed by an Internet boom and
reduced by dwindling defense contracts, is
struggling to find stability in a new, more
humble role.
The major contractors during the big 1980s
defense budgets -- Lockheed Missiles &
Space Co., Ford Aerospace and Communications
Corp., GTE Sylvania, FMC Corp.,
ESL Inc. -- have downsized, merged, lost
their names or reinvented themselves as
commercial businesses to stay alive.
A reminder of this turmoil came only two
weeks ago when Lockheed Martin Corp. raised
the possibility of selling, consolidating or
revamping one of its crown jewels, its missiles
and space operation in Sunnyvale. And this
comes after Lockheed Martin's local
employment has fallen to 7,850 from nearly
25,000 in 1986.
Throughout Santa Clara County, the number of
employees working for military
contractors has fallen by half in a decade.
Only 2.1 percent, or 20,600, of the county's
962,100 jobs are in the major defense
sectors, down from 5.2 percent, or 42,100 in
1988, according to state Employment
Development Department figures.
Luckily, the cutbacks in defense were more
than compensated by the expanding civilian
sector. Jobs in civilian business services,
including software development, have rocketed
from 59,000 in 1988 to 129,200 last year,
according to EDD.
The defense slump ``coincided with a
wonderful time when you had a lot of new
economics blossoming in biotech, the Internet
and high-tech manufacturing,'' said Mike
Curran, director of the NOVA/Private Industry
Council that has helped thousands of
laid-off defense workers find new jobs. ``It
was an ideal situation of talented people and
empty space for them to grow into. All in
all, we are much healthier now, market-based
rather than national-policy-based.''
Leveling off
It's possible that this slump is now leveling
off. Over the past two years, prime defense
contracts have stabilized at about $2.8
billion to $3 billion a year in Santa Clara County,
down from a 1980s peak of $5 billion,
according to Defense Department data.
Still, Lockheed Martin is a clear example of
the troubled shift from military to civilian
work. At its sprawling Sunnyvale campus,
Building 107 was designed to foil enemy
eavesdropping during the Cold War. There's
not much to spy on now: The building is an
exhibit center containing a rambling display
of the company's past Cold War triumphs
and current commercial projects.
Not far away from Building 107 sits Peter
Kujawski, president of Lockheed Martin
Commercial Space Systems. He has been busy
pulling in new commercial contracts for
satellite production. In 1993, Lockheed's
Sunnyvale operation produced no commercial
satellites, but now Lockheed Martin's
commercial satellite portion is 25 percent of its
overall business. The ones it makes for the
military are specially adapted versions with an
``M'' tagged on the end.
``This is a challenge,'' Kujawski said.
``We're no longer just selling satellites with the
guarantee that they are going to provide
secure communications. We've got to worry
about our customer's business plan, which
includes everything from insurance to the
type of launch vehicle they want to use.''
Down the street from Building 107, another
building -- 104 -- sits on 26 acres where
engineers once worked on secret satellite
projects. It recently was sold to a developer. In
all, 68 acres of the company's formerly
600-acre campus have been sold off in the past
two years.
The stories of three other major companies,
several of them among the Bay Area's largest
defense contractors a decade ago, show how
they met the challenge of shrinking defense
contracts. Some have merged, some moved out
of town, and some got out of defense
work entirely.
FMC Corp.
FMC Corp. went through an upheaval similar to
Lockheed Martin's when the Army
ended production of the Bradley Fighting
Vehicle, one of its mainstays of business until
1995. At FMC's plant in Santa Clara,
employment plummeted from 7,500 in 1984 to
1,850 in 1996. Within FMC, blue-collar
workers were hit hardest: The International
Association of Machinists once represented
about 3,500 production workers; by 1996,
the bargaining unit numbered fewer than 300.
In 1992, FMC combined its defense operations
with Harsco's BMY Combat Systems to
form United Defense. Then, in the wake of
reduced defense budgets, FMC and Harsco
sold the stagnating division for $850 million
to the Carlyle Group investment firm, based
in Washington, D.C.
United Defense, which moved the manufacture
of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle to
Pennsylvania in 1995, is left with a much
smaller local workforce focused on high-tech
improvements to its products.
``We're not having a going-out-of-business
sale or anything like that,'' said one United
Defense official. ``We're just changing the
way we do things to react to smaller defense
budgets.''
Ford Aerospace
Some Bay Area military contractors have
actually found a new source of life beyond the
military. Ford Aerospace and Communications
Corp., a part of Ford Motor Co.,
designed and manufactured communication
satellites, ground terminals and intelligence
devices for the military, mainly at the
Western Development Laboratories Division in
Palo Alto.
In the 1990s, this Palo Alto unit was carved
up into several parts after Ford Aerospace
was purchased by New York-based Loral Space &
Communications Ltd. Some workers
stayed with Loral. Others were transferred to
Lockheed Martin Management & Data
Systems-Western Region in San Jose.
While the unit's workforce in San Jose has
declined to 1,000, down from 4,000 in 1989,
the total number of workers here has
increased if the workforce of other spinoffs is
factored in, company officials said.
Loral, meanwhile, focuses now on commercial
satellites. But even here, there are risks.
Last year, in the wake of the Asian economic
crisis, Loral said it would lay off 300 of its
3,400 Silicon Valley workers because Asian
clients had backed out of contracts for some
of its commercial satellites.
Other companies besides Ford Aerospace were
bought out completely. For example,
ESL in Santa Clara was incorporated into
defense giant TRW Inc., and GTE Sylvania in
Mountain View into General Dynamics Corp.
Trimble Navigation Ltd.
Trimble Navigation, based in Sunnyvale, shows
how the loss of defense contracts can be
a blessing in disguise for Silicon Valley.
The company learned the hard way not to
depend on the military.
Until 1990, the company consciously focused
on the commercial market for its
navigation instruments and systems, keeping
its military business to a mere fifth of
overall sales.
But when the Persian Gulf War broke out in
1991, the company won an exclusive
contract to produce hand-held receivers for
the military. The offer was too good for the
young company -- founded in the late 1970s --
to turn down, recalls Ralph Eschenbach,
vice president of technology at Trimble, who
brought global positioning system (GPS)
technology to the company.
`Culture shock'
What followed was nothing short of ``cultural
shock,'' explained Charlie Arminger, vice
president of sales. When he arrived in 1989,
the company had $19 million in sales. By
1991, at the height of Desert Storm, the
company's sales had increased more than
sevenfold, to $150 million.
Trimble's production lines were so stretched
that it was forced to turn to other companies
to help meet the government's demands. Under
the contract, the company was forced to
make the receivers its priority. ``It was an
order from the president,'' Arminger recalled.
When the war ended, the government refused to
accept any more shipments of the
receivers, even though Trimble had
reorganized its production line around them. ``For
us, it was as though the war lasted for a
nanosecond,'' Arminger said. ``We were
suddenly left with a ton of inventory sitting
around. We went into a funk.''
Trimble was forced to slash jobs, and sales
plunged. The company has since recovered,
but only because it moved aggressively into
commercial production. It has since doubled
the amount of its sales to $300 million, and
only about 10 percent of its business remains
tied to military contracts.
``We learned that the military game is like a
drug,'' Arminger said. ``Once you start to
play, there's a stringent set of guidelines
that create a corporate culture which is very
tough to back away from.''
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