Hi-tech group to name all-star slate of directors.

The California consortium striving to create a homegrown transportation industry using public seed money and the Southland's technological muscle is expected June 8 to announce a powerhouse board of directors that includes a major defense contractor, eight California utility and transit districts and a bevy of smaller local companies.

Among those joining the 15-member board of CalStart -- the public-private transit group founded by Rep. Howard Berman, D-Panorama City, last year -- are top executives from Hughes Aircraft Co., Pasadena coatings-maker Avery Dennison, Southern California Edison Co., the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power and electric-car parts builder Amerigon Inc. A Burbank press conference has been scheduled to unveil the new board, whose member organizations have already ponied up $14 million in cash and in-kind contributions to CalStart.

But more important than the up-front investment, anticipated to reach $28 million by year's end, is the clout the slate of directors could give CalStart in its bid to snag huge public dollars for work on components for electrically powered cars and buses and rail cars. If the federal money is secured through congressional lobbying by Berman and others, it would greatly help the European-style conglomerate recruit other local military contractors eager to diversify but wary of new ventures.

CalStart, for instance, is competing against other states to win part of the $1 billion Congress has earmarked in the 1993 Pentagon budget for commercial work on technologies with military applications, like electric fuel cells, sensors and lightweight materials. Furthermore, the consortium intends to go after a chunk of the $750 million set aside in the Federal Surface Transportation Act for prototype development of magnetic-levitation trains.

Combined, both those funding sources could mean $200 million for CalStart. In the meantime, officials expect an additional $6 million in electric car money from national and state agencies to be approved soon.

Future proceeds are expected to come from equipment sales and patents of new technologies.

"One of our functions is create an awareness that technology from major aerospace companies can be commercialized and that it can create new jobs" without soiling the air, said Lon Bell, president of CalStart and Amerigon. "We think our board, a mix of indigenous public and private entities, can capitalize on that."

Acting CalStart Chairman and Edison President Mike Peevey was unavailable for comment as was DWP Board President Mike Gage.

Using a $110,000 building rehabilitation loan approved by the Burbank City Council last spring, some of the consortium's smaller companies have set up camp in 155,000 square feet of abandoned Lockheed space at the Burbank Airport. Officials expect that Lockheed Corp. itself will join CalStart, probably within the next several weeks.

The consortium's primary goal is not to go head to head against the Big Three U.S. automakers on electric cars or experienced rail-car builders like Japan's Sumitomo Corp. Instead, they want to build a research, supplier and customer base to produce dozens of parts and subsystems for electric cars, light-rail vehicles, clean fuel buses and smart-highway technology.

Using the multi-team approach, officials said CalStart could be employing as many as 50,000 locally in five years. Then too, many profit-sharing and legal agreements that spell out how the technologies will be jointly owned, developed and marketed have yet to be signed. Also uncertain is where the production hub will be, though the already secured Burbank Airport facility will likely serve as the initial site for research and manufacturing.

One potentially rich market the consortium could mine is in its own backyard: the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission's $183 billion transit blueprint, which calls for 6,000 low-polluting buses and 500-600 rail cars over the next three decades.

As if to underscore the point, the LACTC chairman is a member of the CalStart board. Later on, the consortium's members hope to assemble the cars and buses here while branching out into other American markets and abroad, possibly under proprietary agreements with the U.S. auto industry.

But there are pitfalls, including the defense industry's dismal track record on commercial endeavors and the state's recent inability to land funding for U.S. government research projects, like the atom-smashing supercollider, which was awarded to Texas.

"What we are trying to show is that California has its act together, that CalStart has a broad public and private sector base able to work for a common interest," said Barry Sedlik, manager of business retention for Edison, which has contributed $500,000 for electric car research. "In the past, California lost out" because industrial entities "weren't able to galvanize support and the state's congressional delegation" was badly divided along parochial lines.

Meanwhile, utilities and transit agencies on the CalStart board have more than altruism on their mind: Most are scrambling to identify mass transit-related technologies that can help them meet tough clean air laws while promoting job growth to bolster a customer base weakened by the evaporation of aerospace jobs.

CalStart is essentially a non-profit umbrella organization supporting a host of for-profit companies and public agencies. Though its efforts are broken down into seven related projects, the lion's share of progress to date has been in its bid to develop a prototype electric car by October that can be showcased at American and European auto shows.

Leading the electric car pursuit is Amerigon, now teamed up with Huntington Beach-based International Automotive Design, Trojan Battery Co., Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Engineers, the Composite Automation Consortium and aerospace companies Allied Signal Inc. and Hughes. In that group, only Hughes is on the consortium's board.

Hughes has also signed up for two other CalStart ventures. One program -- to pioneer the infrastructure parking and battery-recharge needs for widespread use of electric cars -- is being headed by the LADWP. Others involved in the task include utilities like Edison, San Francisco-based Pacific Gas & Electric and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District.

Separately, Hughes has agreed to join CalStart's electric bus mass transit program run by Edison. Santa Barbara Municipal Transit, Sacramento's power agency and Pacific Gas & Electric are also involved in that effort, as are Los Angeles' DWP and harbor and airport departments, APS Systems, Clean Air Transit and two other companies.

A program to explore other mass transit modes, particularly magnetic-levitation trains that travel on frictionless cushions of air, is under way and sources believe that is where Northrop's greatest interest lies.

"The strength of the big aerospace companies is that they have money, know how to plan and are great systems integrators," said Berman legislative aide, John Slifco. "What the medium-sized companies bring is speed and sheer entrepreneurial talent."