Ford Aerospace Plans to Move Headquarters to County, East Coast
Ford Aerospace & Communications said Friday that it will move its corporate headquarters from Detroit to dual offices in Washington and Orange County to be closer to both its government customers and its own big defense operations in Southern California.
Ford Aerospace, the defense and space operations subsidiary of Ford Motor, has kept its 50 headquarters staff members in downtown Detroit’s Renaissance Center--which was largely developed by Ford--to be close to Ford’s corporate offices in suburban Dearborn, Mich.
But the subsidiary had no defense-oriented operations in the Detroit area. It has 13,500 workers in defense and space facilities in California, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Texas and the area of Washington, D.C.
Among other things, it produces satellites, defense electronics and tactical weapons systems and provides support services for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Even before the move was announced, Ford said it had already decided to transfer about a dozen executives from the Detroit headquarters to its Washington office to keep up with trends inside the Defense Department and NASA.
Will Move by Summer
The company said that the 50 staff members who now remain in Detroit will move to Orange County by next summer and that the company’s headquarters will then officially be split between Washington and Southern California. The unit’s president, Donald B. Rassier, will divide his time between Washington and California.
Company spokesman Mark Miller said the Washington office will handle such corporate functions as strategic planning, program development and public relations. Operations to be moved to Orange County include the financial, legal and industrial relations departments.
Key executives who will move to Orange County include D. Anthony Petkelis, vice president of operations; Anthony J. Tether, vice president of technology; Dennis Blue, vice president of industrial relations; Karl E. Wolf, general counsel, and Ronald W. Kueber, vice president of finance.
A Ford Aerospace spokesman said that the company has not yet picked a location for its Orange County headquarters but that it is expected to be in either Newport Beach or Irvine. Ford has a large plant producing missile guidance systems and other defense products in Newport Beach, but the headquarters will not be at the same site, the spokesman said.
The move should bring the company’s top executives in much closer contact with the firm’s manufacturing operations, because most of Ford Aerospace’s facilities are in California. Its Newport Beach plant has a work force of 3,549. Operations in Palo Alto, Sunnyvale and Mountain View employ a combined total of about 5,000.
In April, the Newport Beach facility won a four-year, $38.5-million contract to develop the next generation guidance and control system of the Navy and Air Force Sidewinder missile.
Staff Writer David Olmos contributed to this report.
