Ford Moves Its Aerospace Unit Out of Detroit

DETROIT —  Ford Aerospace & Communications said Friday that it will move its corporate headquarters from Detroit to dual offices in Washington and Orange County in order to be closer to both its governmental 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 staffers in downtown Detroit’s Renaissance Center--which was largely developed by Ford--in order 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 Washington area. 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 found it necessary to transfer about a dozen executives from the Detroit headquarters to its Washington office in order to keep up with trends inside the Defense Department and NASA.

Will Move by Summer

The company added that the 50 staffers who now remain in Detroit will all 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.

A Ford Aerospace spokesman said the company has not yet selected 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.