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AAI Corp., the Hunt Valley company known for its Shadow spy plane, notified 50 employees Thursday that they are being laid off in the next two weeks. Anna-Maria Palmer, AAI's vice president of human resources, said Thursday that those positions were being eliminated to reduce job overlaps and to be more efficient. AAI employs 1,600 workers in Hunt Valley. Palmer said affected workers were encouraged to apply for 40 job openings in Hunt Valley as well as 140 openings at AAI offices throughout the country.

John R. Hebert, a retired mechanical engineer who was vice president of operations at AAI Corp. in Cockeysville, died April 17 of cancer at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. The resident of Phoenix in Baltimore County was 83. John Ray Hebert was born and raised in Port Arthur, Texas, where he graduated from St. Mary's High School. Mr. Hebert earned a bachelor's degree in the early 1950s from Texas A&M University in College Station. He later served in the Army, where he attained the rank of lieutenant.

AAI Corp. of Hunt Valley today announced the acquisition of a California-based hydraulics testing company, as part of AAI's strategy of reducing its reliance on federal contracts.AAI purchased ACL Technologies Inc. of Santa Ana, effective yesterday, and will make it a wholly-owned subsidiary known as AAI/ACL Technologies. The new unit's headquarters will remainin California, with a new president to be appointed by AAI."This is a significant opportunity for us," said Paul J. Michaud, vice president of finance for AAI.ACL, whose annual revenues are about $20 million, is a leader in the design and manufacture of testing systems for hydraulic equipment.

Why must values always take a back seat to the headlong rush of developing technology? ("Md. sees a future in the rise of unmanned aircraft," Aug. 14.) Sure, the creation of these new jobs in a sagging economy (1,050 jobs at AAI alone over the last decade) looks good to the state and to the nation. But look at the down sides: While drones have, over foreign turf (Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen, for example), killed targeted insurgents, they have also taken the lives of noncombatant men, women and children.

AAI Corp., the Hunt Valley company known for its Shadow spy plane, said Tuesday that it is laying off 184 workers from its Baltimore County location. Workers were to be notified Tuesday. Before the layoffs, AAI employed more than 1,600 workers in Maryland. Meanwhile, Maryland's unemployment rate fell in December to 6.7 percent, the lowest since February 2009, the U.S. Labor Department reported Tuesday. The state added 3,100 jobs last month. Sharon Corona, AAI's director of external communications, said the job cuts affect workers at all levels and that those positions were being eliminated so that the company can be as "cost competitive as we can possibly be. " The move comes as the defense contracting dollars from the federal government are expected to dwindle.

AAI Corp. gained one victory and a draw in congressional budget battling yesterday.The victory: In the early hours yesterday, a House-Senate conference committee came up with a compromise plan to address a technical glitch that threatened a $211 million contract awarded to AAI last month for the production of electronic equipment used to measure airport weather conditions and pass them on to pilots preparing to land.The draw: The committee also authorized the spending of $12.7 millions for a small, camera-carrying drone aircraft made by the Cockeysville company.

With a two-second burst of flame from a rocket launcher, the small, unmanned airplane was climbing hundreds of feet above the Harford County countryside.The elaborate show-and-tell at the Harford County Airpark yesterday had two purposes:For Hunt Valley-based AAI Corp. to give the news media a look at unmanned aircraft it has sold to the Department of Defense. The planes are being used on Navy ships and by the Marines in the Persian Gulf region for high-technology reconnaissance. The Iraqi army already has a nickname for them: Zionist war drones.

It had to be a military first.News reports out of the Persian Gulf war zone told of an Iraqi soldier spinning around and around with his hands in the air trying to attract the attention of the pilot of a small plane flying above him.Only it wasn't a plane. It was a pilotless drone, called an RPV (remotely piloted vehicle), with a television camera mounted in its belly.That story -- and a second one about 40 Iraqis trying to surrender to another RPV -- made its way back to AAI Corp. in Cockeysville, where the craft is made.

AAI Corp. and its foreign partner have emerged as the winner of a $43 million contract to build electric trolley buses for Dayton, Ohio.While the contract is yet to be awarded, AAI officials yesterday expressed confidence that they will be involved in the production of up to 91 buses. The work, they said, will be a major thrust for the company as it reduces its dependency on military ** contracts.Paul Guse, an AAI spokesman, said that the signing of a contract is contingent upon an inspection by representatives of the Miami Valley Regional Transit Authority of AAI's facilities in Cockeysville, as well as those of its Czech Republic partner, SKODA.

Nine months ago AAI Corp. was in a death spiral. Earnings were plunging, more than 2,000 jobs had been eliminated, the company's president had resigned under fire and hostile shareholders were demanding that the firm be sold while there ** was something to salvage.So why would Richard R. Erke neff take the job as chief executive of the Cockeysville-based defense contractor when its parent company, United Industrial Corp., came calling?"I really didn't know all the details [of AAI's problems]

AAI Corp., the Hunt Valley company known for its Shadow spy plane, said Tuesday that it is laying off 184 workers from its Baltimore County location. Workers were to be notified Tuesday. Before the layoffs, AAI employed more than 1,600 workers in Maryland. Meanwhile, Maryland's unemployment rate fell in December to 6.7 percent, the lowest since February 2009, the U.S. Labor Department reported Tuesday. The state added 3,100 jobs last month. Sharon Corona, AAI's director of external communications, said the job cuts affect workers at all levels and that those positions were being eliminated so that the company can be as "cost competitive as we can possibly be. " The move comes as the defense contracting dollars from the federal government are expected to dwindle.

Justine E. Dougherty, a homemaker and longtime Harford County resident, died July 14 of an apparent heart attack at Brightview Avondell Independent Living in Bel Air. She was 79. Justine Elizabeth Davis was born in Vero Beach, Fla., and graduated in 1949 from Winter Haven High School in Florida. She attended Grady Memorial Hospital School of Nursing. Mrs. Dougherty was a graduate of Lakeland Business Institute in Lakeland, Fla. In 1954, she married Francis E. Dougherty Jr., who later became a brigadier general with the Maryland Air National Guard.

Edward T. Kusterer, a retired mechanical engineer and World War II veteran, died April 4 of heart failure at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium. He was 94. Mr. Kusterer was born in Richmond, Va., and moved to the city's Pimlico neighborhood in 1918. He was a 1934 graduate of Calvert Hall College High School. He was working as a bank teller at the old Maryland Trust Co. on Eutaw Street when he was drafted in 1941 into the Army Air Corps. After being commissioned a second lieutenant, he joined the 99th Bomb Group, 346th Squadron in Oran, Algeria.

AAI Corp., the Hunt Valley company known for its Shadow spy plane, notified 50 employees Thursday that they are being laid off in the next two weeks. Anna-Maria Palmer, AAI's vice president of human resources, said Thursday that those positions were being eliminated to reduce job overlaps and to be more efficient. AAI employs 1,600 workers in Hunt Valley. Palmer said affected workers were encouraged to apply for 40 job openings in Hunt Valley as well as 140 openings at AAI offices throughout the country.

AAI Corp., the Hunt Valley company most known for its Shadow spy plane, is being split into three separate units by its parent company. Textron Inc., which has owned AAI since 2007, said it was dividing the company to make it more efficient and to better serve customers. The new units are: AAI Unmanned Aircraft Systems, AAI Test & Training and AAI Logistics & Technical Services. Each unit will be headed by separate senior vice presidents and general managers. Ellen Lord, AAI's current senior vice president and general manager, will now lead Textron Defense Systems.

AAI Corp. of Hunt Valley has developed an unmanned surface vessel that can send devices deep into the ocean to detect mines and other threats. The company, a division of Textron Inc., hopes the U.S. Navy will choose the technology to be deployed on its littoral combat ships. The company behind the Shadow spy plane used to pick up counterintelligence over the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan is taking its technology to the seas. AAI Corp. of Hunt Valley has developed an unmanned surface vessel that can send devices deep into the ocean to detect mines and other threats.

Mary M. Courtney, a retired AAI Corp. buyer, died Thursday of complications from Alzheimer's disease at Long View Nursing Home in Manchester. The Cockeysville resident was 83. Born Mary Miller in Baltimore, she was raised in Sparks and was a 1934 graduate of the old Sparks High School. During World War II, she worked at Black & Decker Corp. in Towson and later was a buyer for AAI in Cockeysville. She retired in 1985. Her husband of nearly 35 years, Leslie Earl Courtney, died in 1978. Mrs. Courtney enjoyed playing golf and entertaining.