Aai Corp

Shares of Textron Inc., the owner of Hunt Valley-based defense contractor AAI Corp., rose almost 50 percent Thursday after Kuwait's Al-Watan newspaper reported that a United Arab Emirates group is preparing to buy the maker of Cessna aircraft and Bell helicopters for $21 a share. Providence, R.I.-based Textron surged $4.45, or 49 percent, to $13.56 on the New York Stock Exchange. A deal at $21 would value the company at $5.1 billion based on 242.9 million outstanding shares. After an inquiry from the NYSE, Textron responded that it doesn't comment on market rumors.

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.'s recent contract to produce electronic equipment used to measure airport weather conditions was up in the air itself yesterday when it got caught in a technical hitch during congressional budget squabbles.The problem stemmed from language in the budget law passed last October that prohibits the Department of Transportation from entering into multi-year contracts exceeding $100 million without specific authorization from Congress.That clause was overlooked last month in the negotiations that led to AAI being awarded an $18.9 million contract -- the first phase of a contract that is expected to total $211 million over five years -- to produce the Automated Surface Observing System.

Services for Curtis W. Hopkins, who worked for more than two decades as an illustrator at AAI Corp. in Cockeysville, will be at 7:30 tonight at First United Methodist Church in Denedin, Fla.Mr. Hopkins died of cancer Thursday at his Dunedin home. He was 63.A native of Monkton, Mr. Hopkins was a 1944 graduate of Jarrettsville High School and served in the Army Air Corps in the latter part of World War II.Mr. Hopkins and his wife of 38 years, the former Mary Ruth Coen, lived on College Avenue in Lutherville from 1953 to 1989, when they moved to Florida.

John Barth Storck, who owned an industrial parts business, died of cancer Monday at his Glen Arm home. He was 65. Born in Baltimore and raised in Lutherville, he was a 1961 Calvert Hall College High School graduate. He earned a business administration degree at what is now Towson University and studied at Pennsylvania State University. In the 1960s, he worked at AAI Corp. in Timonium and later opened a motorcycle sales and parts business in Towson. He was an avid motorcycle racer and competed in events.

Federal Contracts Report is a weekly summary of selected contracts recently awarded by the federal government to companies and other vendors in the Baltimore area.*Madigan Construction Co. Inc. in Baltimore won a $2,045,725 contract and another $1,658,710 contract from the U.S. Postal Service to provide construction services.*Westinghouse Electric Corp. of Baltimore won a $451,825 contract from the Air Force to provide engineering services.*C.E.R.Inc. of Baltimore won a $546,600 contract from the Army to provide maintenance, alteration and repair of real property.

About 100 workers at AAI Corp. in Cockeysville are losing their jobs because of a downturn in defense business, AAI said yesterday.Ten of the workers completed their last day on the job Thursday, said Susan Flowers, a spokeswoman for AAI, one of the fastest-growing companies in Maryland during the Reagan defense build-up.Ms. Flowers said an additional 40 workers will receive layoff notices this week and about 50 more will be laid off in June.Ms. Flowers said the layoffs stem from the termination of a new $11 million Air Force contract to build test equipment for the military's Joint STARS aircraft, a radar plane that tracks targets on land, and the loss of a follow-on order to manufacture parts for the Marine Corps' MX-18, a self-load transporter vehicle.

Edmund Francis Shanahan Jr., a retired electrical engineer and model railroad fan, died of a stroke Tuesday at Sinai Hospital. The longtime Bel Air resident was 75. Mr. Shanahan was born and raised in Philadelphia. After earning a bachelor's degree from Temple University in 1953, he moved to Bel Air. From 1953 to 1970, he worked at the Martin Marietta Corp. plant in Middle River and at AAI Corp. in Cockeysville from 1972 to 1974. He was employed for 21 years at United Container in Glen Arm until retiring in 1995.

Merger plans and antitrust lawsuits aside, life goes on at th local division of Northrop Grumman Corp., which has won two military contracts in the past week.The Electronic Sensors & Systems Division in Linthicum, known as ESSD, won a $3.8 million job supplying computerized training equipment to AAI Corp. of Hunt Valley.AAI is putting together training sets for Air Force technicians to practice servicing radar equipment from AWACS surveillance and communications planes. The Northrop Grumman division will develop six radar control maintenance consoles for the trainers and one set of prime mission equipment mock-ups.

Eleanor J. Roy, a World War II veteran and homemaker, died of pneumonia March 22 at Carroll Hospital Center. She was 89. The former longtime Randallstown resident had lived at Carroll Lutheran Village in Westminster since 1991. Eleanor Jane Warner was born and raised in Geneva, N.Y. She studied business at Siena College in Loudonville, N.Y., and enlisted in the Women's Army Corps in 1943. Mrs. Roy, who attained the rank of staff sergeant, served with the 2nd Signal Battalion in Petaluma, Calif.