FRONT LINES OF DEFENSE WAR MACHINE GROWS QUICKLY, CREATING JOBS AND BOOSTING ECONOMIES THROUGH REGION.

Byline: Barbara Correa Staff Writer

The war on terrorism and the buildup to war in Iraq have revived Southern California's defense industry, with major firms snagging huge long-term contracts and smaller nuts-and-bolts suppliers reaping immediate profits from ramped-up production.

For the first time since recession and Defense Department cuts hit hard more than a decade ago, Southern California's defense industry is expanding rapidly, creating job opportunities for thousands and stimulating weak local economies.

Sylmar-based Castle Precision Industries, which makes landing gear components for military planes has seen orders jump for months, said Pierre Gaucher, president of the firm's production division.

And in the last month, he's been seeing a lot more orders marked urgent. ``Orders are rated as routine or highest importance ... we see a lot more of those now than we did a few months ago,'' he said.

Gaucher, which supplies gear for Navy Boeing F/A-18s that patrol the no-fly zone over Iraq, Boeing C-17s and Lockheed Martin F-16s, expects production revenues to double in the next six months due to government demand.

To meet it, Castle has boosted its staff of engineers, technical support, machinists, assembly people and contract administrators by 25 percent, or about 20 people, in recent months, replacing employment lost after 9-11, when Castle's commercial aviation side took a hit.

Every multibillion-dollar contract won by Lockheed Martin, Boeing or Northrop Grumman trickles down to scores of small firms throughout Southern California, propping up local economies from Long Beach to Lancaster.

``You have all these small tech firms in the (San Fernando) Valley, then you have the El Segundo/Redondo Beach node. We're seeing an impact already from these contract awards that's resulted in direct hiring. It's mostly in Palmdale and the South Bay. But it ripples to the whole components industry,'' said Jack Kyser, chief economist at the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp.

For Brek Manufacturing Co., a Boeing subcontractor in Gardena, a recent government order of 60 C-17 military cargo planes means steady work for its 88 machinists and assembly crew over the next four years, said Gene Price, chief executive officer. And now, with the invasion of Iraq, an order for parts for 42 more C-17s is almost certain, he said.

Brek makes large structural components for the planes, such as floor panels and planks and cargo floor bulkheads. ``When these wars happen in the Middle East, the heavy airlift is essential,'' said Price.

Such employment numbers are dwarfed by recruitment at local divisions of defense giants Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Boeing. Northrop recruited more than 400 people, mostly technical engineering staff, in the fourth quarter alone to work at its Redondo Beach location on two major defense contracts it landed last summer: a space-based missile tracking system and a satellite weather system.

The company plans to continue hiring for those projects through this year and aims to recruit about 160 recent engineering college graduates.

Boeing meanwhile snagged several defense contracts last spring and summer that will have a major impact on employment in Southern California, said Mary McAdam, a spokeswoman in the plane maker's Washington, D.C., offices.

A joint tactical radio system to be used by mobile military units on land, sea and air, will employ 150 people in the firm's Anaheim division by the end of the year and up to 400 in the long term, at various locations around Southern California. A second satellite communications program will initially create about 40 jobs and will eventually employ up to several hundred software and communications engineers.

For its part, Lockheed Martin, the world's largest defense contractor, hired 500 staffers at its Palmdale operations in 2002 to work on the joint strike fighter, F/A-22 and a host of other programs. But those hires were largely replacing retiring workers and weren't related to new defense contracts, said Diane Knippel, a spokeswoman at Lockheed's Palmdale location.

As defense-related businesses small and large enjoy the largess of U.S. defense spending, nonmilitary firms are grappling with the flip side of war: absentee employees who've left the office to answer the call to duty.

About 3,800 California reservists have been called up and are actively serving, said Denise Varner, a spokeswoman for the California National Guard, the largest military reserve sector in the state, with 22,000 reservists.

Some of the 600 reservists called up from Los Angeles, Burbank, Van Nuys and Glendale have taken up position at Vandenberg, Edwards and March Air Force bases to help protect aircraft including F-16s and KC-135s, which patrol the no-fly zone over southern Iraq, said Lt. Col. Terry Knight, a spokesman for the California National Guard.

``That's 600 jobs affected,'' said Knight. ``Mostly it's the little companies that have the struggles.''

Companies don't have to continue paying a reservist away on active duty, but they are supposed to hold reservists' jobs until they return. But sometimes, reservists return to find they've been downsized as part of a larger layoff anyway.

When that happens, the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, an organization within the Department of Defense, performs ``boss lifts'' once a year to convince skeptical employers that their employers really are doing something worthwhile.

Employers are flown out to the fields where the reservists are working. ``When they see what they're doing, they don't even blink about giving them the job back when they return,'' said Knight.

A lot of companies do continue paying reservist employees on active duty, which can create some stress long term.

Of 5,800 employees, Smart & Final in City of Commerce counts just 25 military reservists. But every position left vacant requires another employee to fill it, and no one knows how long the person may be gone.

``We have one reservist in Kuwait since May,'' said Randall Oliver, a company spokesman. ``He was a store manager in Fresno. So the assistant manager had to step in,'' he said. ``Unfortunately, it's open-ended.''

``It'll be a slowdown for them - they're going to have to adapt,'' said Petty Officer Jon Ostrowski, a Coast Guard reservist based at San Pedro/Long Beach, about the company he left last month to report for service.

Luckily, he said, he was able to finish phases of the accounting software he was writing at Spectrum Technologies, a 10-employee software business in Temecula.

In an interview before he shipped out, Ostrowski said he didn't know where he was going or how long he'd be gone. But he said he'd be taking his laptop computer along, setting it up in his tent, and working on software in his spare time to help ease the drain on Spectrum.

``I've noticed with reservists that most of their companies are very patriotic, but it doesn't mean it won't affect them in business,'' he said. ``(Spectrum) won't be able to generate the dollars they could if I were there.''

CAPTION(S):

4 photos, 2 boxes

Photo:

(1 -- color) Jose Manchaca inspects part of the floor of a C-17 military cargo plane at Brek Manufacturing Co., a Boeing subcontractor in Gardena.

Stephen Carr/Staff Photographer

(2 -- color) Airplane landing-gear parts await delivery at Castle Precision Industries of Sylmar, where orders have been increasing.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer

(3 -- color) F-16 Fighting Falcon 

(4 -- color) F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet 

Box:

(1) F-16 Fighting Falcon

(2) F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet