COUNTYWIDE : Schools Gain From Northrop Largess

Tons of office equipment and supplies from the Northrop Corp. plant in Newbury Park were donated recently to financially strapped schools in Ventura and Los Angeles counties.

Normally, the hundreds of metal desks and file cabinets used by company employees would have been auctioned off or used elsewhere.

But Northrop officials, citing economic shortfalls in public education, decided the equipment would be better used in the classroom.

“It was like Christmas when these things arrived at the schools,” said Northrop spokeswoman Terri Murphy. “As they unloaded the property off of the trucks, the teachers were just waiting, excited about getting this furniture that they don’t get from their budgets.”

More than 3,000 pieces of furniture were distributed at schools from Simi Valley to Ventura. Also, the company donated miscellaneous office supplies, such as paper clips and pencils. About 20 districts in Los Angeles and Ventura counties benefited from the donation. A small amount of equipment went to several state universities and area private schools.

Since January, Northrop has been moving its missiles and unmanned vehicle operations from Newbury Park to a plant in Hawthorne. That transition is now complete, officials said.

An official from the Pleasant Valley School District in Camarillo commended Northrop for the donation, saying in a letter that the equipment would “allow us to keep most of the monies we receive in the classroom.”

“In these austere funding times, public education is finding it more and more difficult to provide a superior education to the children of California,” said Thomas M. Goins, director of maintenance and operations.