Ball Plant to Close, Costing 100 Their Jobs

Ball Corp. will close its Huntington Beach microelectronics plant by Sept. 1, idling about 100 workers, a company official said Wednesday.

The Bolsa Avenue plant, a unit of Ball Corp.’s aerospace systems group, manufactures custom or “hybrid” microelectronic circuitry for military, medical and commercial customers.

“It has not been a real profitable operation for us,” said Alexander Bracken, a spokesman at the aerospace group’s headquarters in Colorado. “We have been trying to compete with some very large (companies), and the competition has been real tough.”

Some of the companies that compete with the Huntington Beach operation are Teledyne Inc., Hughes Aircraft, Raytheon Co. and Beckman Instruments, according to Ron Hart, manager of the Huntington Beach plant.

Several dozen workers have already been laid off, and the remainder of the job cuts will be made by Sept. 1. The company said it will try to find jobs for the displaced workers with other local employers.

Because of Orange County’s “strong job market” for workers skilled in the electronics field, the company is “pretty optimistic” that it will be able to relocate most of the laid-off employees, Bracken said.

Founded in 1960 as Time Zero Corp., the Huntington Beach plant was acquired by Ball Corp. in 1973.

Ball Corp. also owns Efratom, an Irvine company that manufactures high-accuracy timing and navigation equipment used in military aircraft and satellites. The Irvine operation employs about 120 people.

Ball Corp., based in Muncie, Ind., is a diversified manufacturer of glass, metal and plastic containers, aerospace components and other diversified products. The company is best known for its glass jars widely used for home canning.