Kresa Named President of Northrop
Northrop Corp. named Kent Kresa president and chief operating officer Thursday, replacing Frank W. Lynch, who was named vice chairman.
The appointment of Kresa, 48, was seen by financial analysts as a logical step to an eventual succession of Thomas V. Jones, who has been chief executive of Los Angeles-based Northrop since 1960 and chairman since 1963.
Kresa is the third president to serve under Jones during his 27-year reign at Northrop, however. In addition, the 66-year-old Jones has given no hint in recent years that he has any plan to step down, and he faces no mandatory retirement age at the company.
Rather, Jones has appeared to relish Northrop’s emerging position as the leading military aircraft design firm in the country,holding Pentagon contracts on every major new aircraft program.
Kresa brings a strong background in science and technology to his new job, with a long association at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a member of the Defense Science Board, an important advisory body to the Pentagon.
Kresa joined Northrop in 1975 after a career at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a sort of venture capital arm for the Pentagon’s high-technology research. At Northrop, Kresa has presided over the company’s research center, its drone aircraft business and its aircraft group.
“Kresa’s age, background and the breadth of his corporate experience make him a logical candidate to succeed Jones,” said Wolfgang Demisch, an aerospace analyst at First Boston. “We are starting to see signs of generational change in the aerospace industry.”
Northrop presidents under Jones, in addition to Lynch and Kresa, included Thomas O. Paine from 1976 to 1982. Paine was a Stanford University doctoral graduate and high ranking General Electric executive before going to Northrop.
