Rockwell Begins Move to New Headquarters : Relocation: The aerospace giant will be based in Seal Beach, making it the largest company in Orange County.
It will take three days and a fleet of 42 trucks to complete, but when Rockwell International Corp. completes its move to a new corporate headquarters here it will supplant construction giant Fluor Corp. as the largest Orange County-based company.
Upon their return to work Jan. 2 after a holiday vacation, Rockwell’s 250 corporate staffers will have office views of the Pacific Ocean in Seal Beach instead of Los Angeles International Airport in El Segundo, the aerospace giant’s current headquarters.
Al Bjorklund, facilities executive in charge of the relocation, said last-minute preparations have been hectic for the move, which begins today. For instance, he is anxiously awaiting the Dec. 30 arrival of auditorium ceiling panels.
“That’s cutting it pretty close,” he said.
Most of the remodeling work on the new eight-story headquarters is done. The company spent six months gutting the building’s interior and redoing the offices to create an “open work environment.” Instead of walled offices, for instance, executive offices will have painted glass windows--but no blinds--to assure some privacy.
“I toured Silicon Valley and studied concepts of companies that were known for an open-style atmosphere like Apple Computer,” Bjorklund said. “We went through three or four designs before deciding on one.”
Forty-two trucks, including some transporting top-secret military data that will be escorted by Rockwell security guards, will be required to move office equipment from El Segundo to Seal Beach. Rockwell employees helped to prepare for the move last May when they disposed of 20 tons of unneeded company files.
When the move is complete, Rockwell will be the largest corporation based in Orange County. The technology and aerospace company has annual sales of $11.9 billion and 87,000 employees worldwide, including 10,000 at sites in Anaheim, Seal Beach and Newport Beach.
After a year of study, Rockwell announced in June, 1990, that it had decided to move from its leased headquarters in a Hughes Aircraft Co. building in El Segundo to a partially filled building owned by Rockwell in Seal Beach, near the ocean.
Bjorklund said the company chose Seal Beach because it could save on operating expenses and because the site is centrally located in relation to other Rockwell facilities in Southern California. Also, many of the headquarters’ staff lived in Orange County--including Chairman Donald R. Beall--and the 250,000-square-foot building was half empty.
Beall, a resident of Corona del Mar, will no longer be using a helicopter to commute to work from his home to El Segundo every day, a company spokesman said.
Building 80, built in 1966, originally housed a rocket-booster program and, later, a satellite-manufacturing division. But that division was dismantled in the last year as Rockwell’s contracts to build Navstar navigation satellites came to an end.
Bjorklund declined to say how much Rockwell spent on the move, but he said that cost savings should pay for the move in 3 1/2 years.
Last year, the company completed a construction project to strengthen the building’s ability to withstand earthquakes. The project added a layer of concrete supports and shock absorbers that allow the building to sway 14 inches in any direction.
The company added new parking, an entrance, a circular driveway with heavy landscaping and a cascading water fountain. It also relocated a helicopter pad to please residents of nearby Leisure World who had complained about the noise.
The new wave of corporate staffers won’t overwhelm the 112-acre Seal Beach site, which has 2,000 employees already, down from 3,300 several years ago.
Moving Day for Rockwell
Employees: 87,004
CEO: Donald R. Beall
Headquarters: Seal Beach
Businesses: graphics (commercial printing presses), electronics (defense electronics equipment, computer modems, industrial computers), aerospace (space shuttles, B-1B bomber), automotive, (automotive parts)
1991 sales in millions of dollars
Electronics: $4,672 Aerospace: $3,535 Automotive: $2,340 Graphics: $962 Divested businesses: $418
Source: The Company
