LOCKHEED CUTS; THOUSANDS TO RECEIVE PINK SLIPS.Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer PALMDALE - The once bright Antelope Valley This article is about the Los Angeles County region. For the census-designated place in Wyoming, see Antelope Valley-Crestview, Wyoming. The Antelope Valley aerospace employment picture dimmed Thursday as the Skunk skunk, name for several related New World mammals of the weasel family, characterized by their conspicuous black and white markings and use of a strong, highly offensive odor for defense. Works announced it will lose hundreds of jobs as part of a major restructuring that will cut 2,800 workers at parent Lockheed Martin For the former company, see . Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) is a leading multinational aerospace manufacturer and advanced technology company formed in 1995 by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta. Corp. Most of the cuts - 2,500 jobs, or about 2 percent of Lockheed Martin's 140,000-member work force worldwide - will be in the corporation's aeronautics business area. That includes the Skunk Works in Palmdale and units in Fort Worth, Texas Fort Worth is the fifth-largest city in the state of Texas, 18th-largest city in the United States[1], and voted one of "America’s Most Livable Communities. , and Marietta, Ga. Those units will form a new Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. The exact number of job losses in Palmdale was not disclosed, but a company statement said they would come in approximately equal measures The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. Please help [ improve the introduction] to meet Wikipedia's layout standards. You can discuss the issue on the talk page. across the three states. ``We recognize this is going to be a challenging time for the new company and the Palmdale site,'' said Skunk Works spokesman Gary Grigg. ``The formation of the new company is going to allow the Skunk Works to focus on its core capabilities of developing new aeronautics systems in response to the nation's needs.'' The company said the primary reason for the cuts is saving about $200 million annually. ``These actions are the direct result of our continuing drive to improve our customer focus, flatten our management structure and enhance our financial performance,'' Vance Coffman, the company's chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement. ``They will result in real savings and ensure greater flexibility allowing us to successfully adapt to changing market conditions, maintain the level of program execution our customers expect, while improving our ability to react to new business opportunities,'' he said. Under the restructuring, the Skunk Works will become part of the Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., which will be led by Dain Hancock, a Lockheed Martin corporate executive vice president. In addition to the primary operating sites of Palmdale, Fort Worth, and Marietta, the new company will include subassembly sub·as·sem·bly n. pl. sub·as·sem·blies An assembled unit forming a component to be incorporated into a larger assembly. sites in Clarksburg, W.Va.; Johnstown, Pa.; Meridian, Miss.; and Pinellas, Fla. Paul Nisbet of JSA JSA - Japanese Standards Association. Research Inc. said reducing layers of management will improve communication but that Lockheed will have to do more. ``Most companies are experiencing weakening revenues. There's been an increase in appropriations for defense procurement, but it takes a while for that to trickle through,'' Nisbet said. Officials at Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin disclosed in November that they were reviewing ways to improve the struggling defense giant's financial performance. A month earlier, the maker of stealth jets and missiles sliced its earnings forecast for the next year by more than half. The company cited, in part, an industrywide lack of confidence inspired by contract delays, rocket launch A rocket launch is the first phase of the flight of a rocket. For orbital spaceflights, or for launches into interplanetary space, rockets are launched from a launch pad, which is usually a fixed location on the ground but may also be on a floating platform such as the San Marco failures and the loss of long-standing contracts. The job cuts announced Thursday are expected to take 18 months to complete, with the bulk of the cuts occurring this year. They come in addition to previously announced Skunk Works cuts. The company's payroll has declined from 5,300 in January 1999 to 4,600 now. In November, Skunk Works said it was planning to lay off workers in the coming months as the result of programs wrapping up and delays to the $1.3 billion X-33 program. The X-33, an experimental aircraft designed to test technologies for a future spaceship, suffered a setback in November when damage was discovered to one of two liquid hydrogen Liquid hydrogen is the liquid state of the element hydrogen. It is a common liquid rocket fuel for rocket applications. In the aerospace industry, its name is often abbreviated to LH2 or LH2. tanks following a day of testing. Larry Grooms, executive director of the Greater Antelope Valley Economic Alliance, said that while Thursday's news is bad, the revived Antelope Valley economy will keep it from being a devastating dev·as·tate tr.v. dev·as·tat·ed, dev·as·tat·ing, dev·as·tates 1. To lay waste; destroy. 2. To overwhelm; confound; stun: was devastated by the rude remark. blow. ``There's so many other things going on that we're better able to weather this today than we would have two or three years ago,'' Grooms said. Besides the cuts in the aeronautics jobs in Palmdale, Texas and Georgia, the corporation will slash 300 additional jobs in its space business area, but none in Southern California. Lockheed, listed on the New York Stock Exchange New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) World's largest marketplace for securities. The exchange began as an informal meeting of 24 men in 1792 on what is now Wall Street in New York City. , fell 62.50 cents to $19.4375 a share Thursday. CAPTION(S): photo Photo: (color) Skunk Works in Palmdale will lose hundreds of jobs as part of Lockheed's plan to consolidate operations. |
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