BETHESDA — A story in yesterday's Sun misidentified the director of Lockheed Martin Corp.'s Catonsville research laboratory. He is David Goldheim.
The Sun regrets the error.
BETHESDA -- Lockheed Martin Corp. announced yesterday that it would eliminate 12,000 more jobs and close 38 plants and other facilities around the world -- including a 245-worker research laboratory in Catonsville -- by 1999.
FOR THE RECORD - CORRECTION
The move, anxiously awaited by employees and government officials throughout the country, was aimed at saving $1.8 billion a year by the end of the decade and keeping the company trim amid Pentagon cutbacks, the company said.
"Unless we take these actions we risk becoming noncompetitive," Chairman Daniel M. Tellep said yesterday in making the announcement.
While Maryland's 2,800 Lockheed Martin employees were not spared pain, they got off lightly compared with workers in other states where the defense contractor has big operations. Significantly, the company's Middle River plant was spared closure, although a company spokesman said efforts would continue to "rightsize" the plant's 1,100-worker payroll.
Further, Lockheed Martin is expected to add about 100 workers at its newly consolidated headquarters in Bethesda, while the former headquarters of Lockheed Corp. in Calabasas, Calif., will close.
"We had a few job losses, but it is not so bad," commented Michael Conte, director of the Regional Economic Studies program at the University of Baltimore.
Hardest hit by yesterday's announcement are East Windsor, N.J., and Valley Forge, Pa., where Lockheed Martin will close spacecraft plants employing a total of 5,000 workers. Texas will lose two plants and 1,200 jobs. In all, 12 plants and labs will close, as well as 26 field offices whose work overlaps.
Mr. Tellep said the nation's largest defense contractor needs to make the cuts even though it reported strong profits in the three months that ended March 31, the first quarter of combined operations after the $10 billion merger of Lockheed Corp. and Martin Marietta Corp. After a $165 million merger-related charge, Lockheed Martin said it earned $137 million on sales of $5.6 billion in the first three months of 1995.
Lockheed Martin must keep shrinking because its main source of business -- military spending -- is shrinking, Mr. Tellep said.
"There have been large, deep cuts in defense spending. And about half our work is for the Defense Department," he said.
