Electronics

Northrop Grumman Corp. announced yesterday that first-quarter profit from its defense businesses was largely unchanged from last year, disappointing analysts who had expected gains - particularly from the company's Baltimore-area electronics division. Although the Los Angeles-based defense contractor reported a 34 percent drop in net income for the first three months of 2001, the decrease was attributed almost entirely to stock market losses suffered by the company's pension fund. Overall profit in the quarter, including pension income, was $103 million, or $1.42 per share, compared with $156 million, or $2.23 per share, reported for the first quarter of last year.

Exxon Mobil to buy land to aid cleanup Exxon Mobil Corp. is buying two parcels in the Jacksonville area to help with its efforts to recover 25,000 gallons of gasoline that officials say leaked from an Exxon service station there this year. Betsy Eaton, spokeswoman for the oil company, said the parcels are near the closed station at Jarrettsville Pike and Sweet Air and Paper Mill roads. She said she did not know the size of the parcels, but said they were already being used by cleanup contractors, with the approval of the property owners.

Hampstead police display new sign to deter speeders The Hampstead Police Department unveiled yesterday its newest method to try to slow motorists driving through town - a speed sentry display sign. The display panel features a data logging system that alerts drivers to their speed. The system also will allow the police to analyze vehicle speeds and target areas for enforcement of speed limits. The display was purchased with town funds and donations from State Farm Insurance, the Carroll County Health Department's CRASH Coalition in cooperation with the Maryland State Highway Safety Office, and concerned citizens.

Walgreen Co.'s first-quarter earnings rose 25 percent as the largest U.S. drugstore chain added stores and increased sales of prescription drugs. Net income of $231.6 million, or 22 cents a share, compared with $185.9 million, or 18 cents, a year earlier, the company said. Sales in the quarter that ended Nov. 30 increased 14 percent to $7.48 billion from $6.56 billion. Walgreen boosted spending on promotions to keep customers from switching to rivals such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., supermarket chain Safeway Inc. and drugstore chains offering discounts.

James G. Roche, the head of Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Baltimore-area electronics division, will be nominated by President Bush to become secretary of the Air Force, the White House announced yesterday. Roche has managed Northrop Grumman's Electronic Sensors and Systems Sector in Linthicum since it was purchased from Westinghouse in 1996. He helped the unit nearly double its workload over that period to about $5 billion a year and built the division into one of the world's premier developers of sophisticated military electronics and radar systems.

An Army engineer was honored Feb. 9 as the Black Engineer of the Year, Most Promising Engineer - Government category at the BEYA STEM Conference in Washington, D.C. Moses K. Mingle, a supervisory electronics engineer for the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command's communications-electronics center, or CERDEC, was named most promising engineer for his contributions in the field electronic warfare countermeasures. Mingle serves as branch chief for the Electronic Warfare Systems, Ground Branch in CERDEC's Intelligence & Information Warfare Directorate, or I2WD.

One of Cyberspud's favorite toys as a kid was his Mattel Electronics Football, the granddaddy of all electronic handheld games. In 1977, this baby was the bomb. Sure, it didn't have the snazzy animation of a (Nintendo) Game Boy - players were nothing more than tiny LED smears. You couldn't pass. And a doorbell had zippier sound effects. So what does this have to do with the Super Bowl or the Internet? Simple. Miller Brewing Co. has reincarnated the game for one of its online Super Bowls ads. Find the game at SuperBowl.

Jim Roche has enough military toys on his office wall to overthrow a puppet regime.A friend who knows his boyish delight in things that go whoosh and bang once joked that being general manager of the Northrop Grumman Corp. electronics division in Linthicum gives Roche access to "the biggest F.A.O. Schwarz in the world."It's about more than toys, of course. Northrop Grumman bought the former Westinghouse plant exactly a year ago next Saturday because its 7,300 workers make radars and other gear for the real-life versions of those attack jets, submarines, helicopters and trucks on Roche's shelves.

Elizabeth McKnight entered the Apple Store at Towson Town Center recently hoping to buy the one Christmas gift her teenage daughter had been asking for since September, but convinced she would have to settle for a compromise. She had, after all, already searched the Web in vain and listened to the pessimistic predictions of a friend as they drove to the mall. "My friend who brought me here said, `You're not going to get the color you want. You can try but you won't get it,'" McKnight said as she stood in the checkout line with a big, this-makes-my-day smile and the reason for that glee - an iPod mini, in her daughter's wish-list color of green.

Less than two years after going public, Visicu Inc. has agreed to sell out for $430 million to the health care unit of the Dutch electronics giant Royal Philips Electronics NV. The $12-a-share cash offer represents a premium of 35 percent over Monday's closing price of $8.86 for the Baltimore company that developed systems to monitor intensive-care patients. But the price is far below its trading range in the weeks after its April 2006 initial public offering. Visicu's board has agreed to recommend the transaction, which is subject to regulatory review and a vote of Visicu shareholders.