Lockheed Martin

In the past century, humans conquered powered flight, harnessed the energy of the atom, even played golf on the moon. But the perfect performance appraisal is still nowhere in sight. "Companies are struggling with the same issues they did 30 to 40 years ago," said Ronald Gross, a Maitland, Fla., industrial psychologist and human-resources consultant. Jay Jamrog, who heads the Human Resource Institute at the University of Tampa, said the pattern with performance appraisals is all too familiar.

Lockheed Martin Corp. is warning state regulators that it will lay off 35 employees based at five Maryland military facilities because a contract to provide services at those locations is not being renewed. The Bethesda-based defense contractor told the state Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation that layoffs would affect four employees based at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, two employees based at a Naval Observatory location in Montgomery County, 14 employees based at two Naval Support Activity locations in Maryland and 15 employees based at the Naval Air Station in Patuxent River.

Defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. said Wednesday that it will lay off up to 95 employees in Greenbelt when a government contract expires in September. The employees affected are working on a multi-year contract with the National Archives and Records Administration to build a system for the agency's electronic records archive, a project now coming to an end. Lockheed said the layoffs, which could start in August and will finish by Sept. 30, will likely end up being less than the 95 total because it is working to place employees in other company jobs.

Defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. said Wednesday that it will lay off up to 95 employees in Greenbelt when a government contract expires in September. The employees affected are working on a multi-year contract with the National Archives and Records Administration to build a system for the agency's electronic records archive, a project now coming to an end. Lockheed said the layoffs, which could start in August and will finish by Sept. 30, will likely end up being less than the 95 total because it is working to place employees in other company jobs.

The U.S. Navy has awarded a $17 million contract to Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin to provide engineering design services for the MK 41 Vertical Launching System on two classes of ships. The MK 41 Launching System has been one of the main products made at Lockheed Martin's facility in Middle River. The contract includes options that could bring its total value to $104 million over four years. The work will be performed at facilities in Maryland and California. - Baltimore Sun staff

Completion of the $10 billion merger between Martin Marietta Corp. and Lockheed Corp. makes Maryland the headquarters state for the nation's largest aerospace and defense company, a $23 billion behemoth whose new name, Lockheed Martin, echoes down through the decades of aviation history. Which company came out top dog in this deal is a matter of who you are and where you are.The corporate staffs for both companies, Martin in Bethesda and Lockheed in Calabasas, Calif., both comprised about 500 employees.

Divisions of Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin Corp. won major contracts at opposite ends of the globe yesterday.Australia picked the company to help complete that nation's early warning radar system. And the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office awarded Lockheed Martin $254 million for upgrading computer operations.The Australian project involves a joint venture with Transfield Defence Systems to manage the installation of two radar complexes, the Jindalee Operational Radar Network, which will guard Australia's northern coast.

They make missiles, warplanes and space vehicles, but no longer does Lockheed Martin Corp. supply a healthy percentage of the rocks and minerals used across the country in more Earth-bound construction work.The Bethesda defense giant announced yesterday that it had completed a stock swap that purged it of Martin Marietta Materials Inc., of Raleigh, N.C."Obviously, their core business is defense, and they decided to spin off this business to shareholders," said industry analyst Stuart McCutchan, who publishes a newsletter called Defense Mergers & Acquisitions.

Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin Corp., the world's second-biggest aerospace and defense company, has told analysts that its profit will be smaller than expected in the fourth quarters of this year and next year because of increased costs and order delays.The company made the forecast during a conference call Tuesday.Yesterday, Prudential Securities analyst Todd Ernst cut his fourth-quarter estimate to $2.05 a share from $2.10 and cut the full-year estimate to $6.66 from $6.71. Ernst, who has a "hold" rating on Lockheed, cut his 1999 estimate to $7.30 from $7.40.

Norman R. Augustine took another voluntary demotion yesterday at Lockheed Martin Corp., giving the chairmanship reins over to Vance D. Coffman at the company's annual meeting in Irving, Texas.Augustine retired last year as chief executive officer of the Bethesda company that he built into the biggest defense contractor in the world. The 62-year-old executive, a telegenic figure who has written a best-selling book and was known as the political and popular figurehead of his industry, said last year that he also planned to step down as chairman of the board.

U.S. industry consumes more than one-third of the energy used nationwide, according to federal government data. That statistic is sobering, but it also represents an opportunity for industry innovation and leadership. We must plan for the future with forward-thinking approaches to energy sourcing and savings. When industry makes even relatively small strides toward energy efficiency, the results are significant. At large companies, shutting off computers when they aren't in use can reduce annual carbon footprints by tens of thousands of metric tons.

The U.S. Navy has awarded a $17 million contract to Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin to provide engineering design services for the MK 41 Vertical Launching System on two classes of ships. The MK 41 Launching System has been one of the main products made at Lockheed Martin's facility in Middle River. The contract includes options that could bring its total value to $104 million over four years. The work will be performed at facilities in Maryland and California. - Baltimore Sun staff

Lockheed Martin, one of Baltimore County's larger employers, officially opened its sixth facility Monday in Woodlawn and announced plans to add 160 information technology jobs to a work force that exceeds 1,500. The company's Information Systems & Global Services division has refurbished and rewired a nearly 42,000-square-foot brick building on Woodlawn Drive near the Social Security Administration complex. In the past year, the company has hired about 200 employees in its efforts to provide a wide variety of services to SSA, which is continuing modernization efforts.

The radical reshuffling of America's military priorities proposed by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates this week makes an important turn away from the wasteful spending on the kinds of wars we used to fight to better prepare for the nontraditional conflicts we are likely to face. Maryland would gain because billions in Pentagon spending would be shifted toward intelligence, surveillance and research programs headquartered here, most importantly, at the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, which intercepts and decrypts secret communications around the world.

WASHINGTON - Streamlining and restructuring military spending for conflicts like Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates proposed on Monday adding special force troops, cyber-war capabilities, theater missile defense systems to protect troops and unmanned aerial vehicles while slashing some big-war, big-ticket programs such as the supersonic stealth F-22 fighter made by Lockheed Martin of Bethesda. The proposed cancellation of the F-22 production line, which had long been expected, potentially threatens about 625 jobs in Maryland at Lockheed Martin and some subcontractors, according to Lockheed.

The Supreme Court made it easier yesterday for workers to win lawsuits that claim a company policy discriminates against older employees, ruling in favor of 17 fired workers suing a Lockheed Martin Corp. unit. The 7-1 decision puts more of a burden on employers to justify layoffs and other employment practices that disproportionately affect older workers. The majority said that, under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the employer must show it had a legitimate reason for the challenged practice other than age discrimination.

River Hill's Garcia wins scholarship Leo Carelle Garcia, a senior at River Hill High School, is one of 20 students around the country to receive a Citigroup Academy of Finance Scholarship of $20,000, or $5,000 a year for four years, to be used for tuition, room, board and other educational expenses. In addition to receiving the award, Garcia will be paired with a Citigroup mentor and given a summer internship at one of Citigroup's subsidiary companies in the United States or abroad. As a student in the Academy of Finance, part of a national program of specialty classes, he has served as state president of DECA, a student organization focused on business and marketing.