Raytheon

Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Baltimore division could soon abandon the business of building airport radar systems, putting 340 local employees out of work and quitting a craft at which it has succeeded for decades. Northrop Grumman officials say the U.S. government is to blame. Company executives and local congressmen are lobbying to preserve Northrop Grumman's role in the air traffic control business. They have taken the unusual step of petitioning the Pentagon and the Federal Aviation Administration to reopen a $620 million contract awarded four years ago to the company's main competitor in the radar industry, Raytheon Corp.

You've just been put in charge of Lockheed Martin Corp., and besides buying new Lincolns for all your friends, you have to decide on a radar for the company's next family of fighter planes.You could shop around and see if Raytheon has any bargains. Or you could get a radar from Lockheed Martin's own plant in Linthicum. Just remember: this is the only fighter plane the Pentagon expects to build for decades, so if Linthicum doesn't make the radar, that portion of your company isn't going to have a whole lot to do.What's your call?

It's nail-biting time for employees at Westinghouse Electric Corp., including its 8,500 workers in Maryland.There is widespread speculation that the Pittsburgh-based company will announce the sale of as many as four of its operating divisions this week to help help pay for its $5.4 billion acquisition of CBS Inc.According to analysts who follow the company, Westinghouse may announce the sale of major assets as early as this evening.Top executives of Westinghouse, including Chairman and Chief Executive Michael H. Jordan, are scheduled to meet with securities analysts tomorrow morning in New York.

Defense Secretary William J. Perry, a bookish-looking man with the public demeanor of a slightly distracted bureaucrat, walked into a Pentagon briefing room last month and set off a bomb in American industry.His announcement of two finalists to build the fighter plane of the future drove the third-place company, McDonnell Douglas Corp. of St. Louis, into its recently announced merger with Seattle's Boeing Co.This is something like the CBS television network surrendering itself to ABC, a dramatic reconfiguration of an edifice that seemed too big for such change.

Members of the Maryland Association of Certified Public Accountants are answering readers' tax questions through April 15.Q: I had two shares of GM H stock and 51.004 shares of GM common stock as of Dec. 17, 1997, which gave me 4.3773 shares of Raytheon Class A stock. Raytheon paid me $21.19 for the fractional share. How do I report the $21.19 for 1997?A: The $21.19 is reported as a sale on Schedule D. The date acquired is deemed to be the date that you acquired your GM common stock. A portion of your basis in GM is allocated to the Raytheon stock you received.

Biomet-Kirschner deal revisedBiomet Inc. said the terms of its $37 million merger agreement with Kirschner Medical Corp. have been revised to permit payment in stock and cash. The original agreement, announced in July, was for all cash or all stock. The new agreement allows between 60 percent and 100 percent in cash.Since July, Warsaw, Ind.-based Biomet has paid $8.7 million cash for Figgie International Inc.'s 19.9 percent stake in Timonium-based Kirschner. A Biomet spokesman said an all-stock deal and a pooling of interests was no longer possible as a result.

Raytheon subsidiary marks Fulton move Solipsys, a Raytheon Co. subsidiary, celebrated its move to Maple Lawn, Maryland, last week. Howard County Executive Ken Ulman, Councilwoman Mary Kay Sigaty and Maple Lawn developer Stewart Greenebaum joined Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems President Dan Smith and Raytheon Solipsys President Mark Trenor in a cutting ribbon ceremony at the company's new location. The company moved about five miles from its former location in Laurel to its new building in Fulton in December.

Evelyn Nicholson, 88, nurse, Sudbrook Park residentEvelyn Jewel Nicholson, a former nurse and a longtime Sudbrook Park resident, died Sunday of a heart attack at Willows Assisted Living Home in Hanover, Pa. She was 88 and had lived on Sudbrook Lane.The former Evelyn Kirk was born in Oakwood in Cecil County to Charles E. and Blanche Kirk. She attended public school in Rising Sun.After receiving a nursing certificate from Maryland General Hospital's School of Nursing, she worked briefly as a registered nurse at Kernan Hospital in Baltimore.

ROBERT DECAREAU, 82 Helped develop the microwave oven Robert Decareau, who helped invent the processes necessary to create the microwave oven, died Sunday in Amherst, Mass., after suffering from Alzheimer's disease for the past 17 years. Dr. Decareau worked for Raytheon after earning his doctorate in chemistry. It was there that he started working on microwave energy food applications, and he was one of the first to call himself a food scientist. His daughter, Karen Ross, said she remembered her father experimenting with a refrigerator-size prototype microwave oven in the family's basement in the 1960s.

Jack Ryan, 65, an inventor and designer whose creations ranged from the Barbie doll to air-to-air missiles, died Aug. 13, two years after suffering a debilitating stroke. Mr. Ryan, a former husband of actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, held more than 1,000 patents. He was a former vice president of research and design for Mattel Inc. and designed many of the country's best-selling toys. Mr. Ryan designed the Sparrow and Hawk missiles when he worked for Raytheon in Los Angeles.Harlan Foss, 50, a longtime New York City Opera baritone, died )