Defense And Aerospace

Lockheed Martin Corp., which was rebuffed earlier this year in its $11 billion attempt to purchase Northrop Grumman Corp., may be looking overseas for a new partner.According to a report in Britain's Sunday Telegraph, the giant, Bethesda-based defense and aerospace company is holding talks with General Electric Co. PLC, of London, to create a company valued at more than $34 billion.GEC is Britain's second-largest defense contractor, with annual sales of $6 billion. It is not a part of Fairfield, Conn.

Johns Hopkins Medicine and defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. said Tuesday they would work together to create a safer and more efficient model for hospital intensive care units. The Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality at Hopkins and Lockheed will examine how technologies from the aerospace and defense industries can be used to reduce medical mistakes and improve patient safety and quality of care. Hopkins officials said ICUs currently use piecemeal approaches that are prone to errors.

The new year should better for the defense and aerospace industry, but it won't be a good year.In recent years the industry has been plagued by declining sales and large-scale layoffs. But 1996 could be different, said Donald Fuqua, president of the Aerospace Industries Association. The new year could mark the transition to better times."The evidence suggest that the light at the end of the tunnel is not an oncoming train," Mr. Fuqua said. "It is the light of a new dawn for the aerospace industry, the herald of an era of stability and exceptional promise."

Lockheed Martin Corp. lived down to expectations yesterday, reporting a 15 percent drop in net earnings for the fourth quarter compared with the previous year.The company had cautioned that delays in space launches and military aircraft deliveries would hurt results. The Bethesda-based defense and aerospace company reported net income of $308 million, or 81 cents per diluted share, for the three months that ended Dec. 31 compared with profit of $363 million, or 89 cents per diluted share, for the 1997 quarter.

Martin Marietta Corp.The Bethesda-based defense and aerospace company reported a 25 percent gain in third-quarter earnings, helped, in part, by a non-recurring gain on the sale of Florida real estate including a shopping center, as well as the positive effect of a favorable ruling in a legal dispute related to the 1989 sale of a cement plant.

WASHINGTON -- Raytheon Co. and General Motors Corp.'s && Hughes Electronics won federal antitrust approval yesterday for their $9.5 billion combination, bringing the companies a step closer to creating the nation's third largest defense and aerospace company.In a settlement with the Justice Department and the Pentagon, Raytheon and Hughes agreed to sell two defense electronics businesses with combined sales of about $50 million, erect a firewall that preserves competition for an upcoming bid on a new missile for the U.S. Army and provide fixed prices for AMRAAM missiles as the sole supplier of those weapons.

GREENBELT -- Last month when President Clinton visited the Westinghouse plant in Linthicum, he promised $1.7 billion in federal money to help the nation's defense industry convert to new commercial markets."

WASHINGTON -- Employment in the defense and aerospace industry is expected to fall next year to its lowest level since Dwight D. Eisenhower was president, the leader of an industry trade group said yesterday.In his annual year-end review and forecast luncheon at the Capital Hilton yesterday, Aerospace Industries Association President Donald Fuqua said the industry is expected to shed 34,000 jobs in 1995, after losing 71,000 this year.Speaking to more than 500 officials of defense and areospace companies, including Westinghouse Electric Corp.

Nothing, it appears, is real in California. Not even the money. Instead of paying state workers in checks redeemable in cash, officials are handing out IOUs -- that many banks won't cash.That's the sad reality in this country's largest state, where a deadlock in the capital of Sacramento has the state operating without a budget. There's an $11 billion deficit to be closed but the Republican governor and Democratic legislature won't back down from their ideological stands.This has been going on for eight weeks.

Despite the recent promises by President Clinton to boost Pentagon spending by $27 billion over the next six years, this year is expected to be another tough one for the nation's defense workers."

Lockheed Martin Corp., which was rebuffed earlier this year in its $11 billion attempt to purchase Northrop Grumman Corp., may be looking overseas for a new partner.According to a report in Britain's Sunday Telegraph, the giant, Bethesda-based defense and aerospace company is holding talks with General Electric Co. PLC, of London, to create a company valued at more than $34 billion.GEC is Britain's second-largest defense contractor, with annual sales of $6 billion. It is not a part of Fairfield, Conn.

WASHINGTON -- Raytheon Co. and General Motors Corp.'s && Hughes Electronics won federal antitrust approval yesterday for their $9.5 billion combination, bringing the companies a step closer to creating the nation's third largest defense and aerospace company.In a settlement with the Justice Department and the Pentagon, Raytheon and Hughes agreed to sell two defense electronics businesses with combined sales of about $50 million, erect a firewall that preserves competition for an upcoming bid on a new missile for the U.S. Army and provide fixed prices for AMRAAM missiles as the sole supplier of those weapons.

The new year should better for the defense and aerospace industry, but it won't be a good year.In recent years the industry has been plagued by declining sales and large-scale layoffs. But 1996 could be different, said Donald Fuqua, president of the Aerospace Industries Association. The new year could mark the transition to better times."The evidence suggest that the light at the end of the tunnel is not an oncoming train," Mr. Fuqua said. "It is the light of a new dawn for the aerospace industry, the herald of an era of stability and exceptional promise."

After 10 months of extensive review of its worldwide operations, Lockheed Martin Corp. this week will announce a sweeping reorganization designed to cut its operating costs by billions of dollars over the next five years.One industry analyst said the plan, which is expected to be announced Wednesday or Friday, would likely result in a dozen or more plants being closed and up to 35,000 workers being displaced.In addition to the closings, Lockheed Martin may also announce that it will sell some of its marginal businesses.

The planned layoff of 350 workers at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel could presage a new round of job losses at other area defense and aerospace firms, defense and economic analysts say.The cutbacks at one of Maryland's largest defense contractors, effective in August, come at a time when the aerospace industry projects a loss of 34,000 jobs nationally because of a drop in Pentagon and civil aviation spending."

Despite the recent promises by President Clinton to boost Pentagon spending by $27 billion over the next six years, this year is expected to be another tough one for the nation's defense workers."

WASHINGTON -- Donald Fuqua, president of the Aerospace Industries Association, projected a "less than rosy" outlook in the year ahead for the nation's major defense and aerospace contractors but stressed that the picture is "not as dismal as some have painted it."Speaking at the trade group's annual year-end review and forecast lunch at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, Mr. Fuqua said the final 1990 figures are expected to show a 5 percent decline in the number of aerospace and defense workers. This translates into a loss of 69,000 jobs.

After 10 months of extensive review of its worldwide operations, Lockheed Martin Corp. this week will announce a sweeping reorganization designed to cut its operating costs by billions of dollars over the next five years.One industry analyst said the plan, which is expected to be announced Wednesday or Friday, would likely result in a dozen or more plants being closed and up to 35,000 workers being displaced.In addition to the closings, Lockheed Martin may also announce that it will sell some of its marginal businesses.

WASHINGTON -- Employment in the defense and aerospace industry is expected to fall next year to its lowest level since Dwight D. Eisenhower was president, the leader of an industry trade group said yesterday.In his annual year-end review and forecast luncheon at the Capital Hilton yesterday, Aerospace Industries Association President Donald Fuqua said the industry is expected to shed 34,000 jobs in 1995, after losing 71,000 this year.Speaking to more than 500 officials of defense and areospace companies, including Westinghouse Electric Corp.

In the lonely confines of his home, Dan Thomas tinkered and toiled away on his passion: developing computer software for highly sophisticated geographic mapping systems."