Hughes’ Group Wins $61-Million Radar Pact : * Defense: The contract could protect 150 jobs of people who might have been laid off. Follow-up work could amount to another $452 million.
Hughes Aircraft Co.’s Ground Systems Group won a $61-million contract to build battlefield radars--an award that could protect up to 150 local defense jobs, the company announced Thursday.
The U.S. Army contract could support employment for Hughes workers over the next year who might otherwise have faced layoffs, said company spokesman Dan Reeder. Follow-up work could eventually give Hughes more than $452 million in work, he said.
“This will save jobs,” Reeder said. “Winning a program of this size is important to continuing our product line.”
Hughes will provide six prototype TPQ-36A radars and spare parts under the initial 18-month contract from the U.S. Army Missile Command in Redstone Arsenal, Ala. The company could provide as many as 154 radars in full-scale production scheduled to begin in 1995.
The mobile radars are the main sensors for the Army’s air defense system, which protects troops, tanks and other battlefront units from fast, low-flying attack aircraft or helicopters.
Defense cuts have taken a toll on the Ground Systems unit. The group employs about 7,500 in Fullerton, down from about 15,000 in 1986. Another Hughes division in Rancho Santa Margarita, which makes industrial products, said two weeks ago it would move to Carlsbad, clouding the future of nearly 500 employees.
The company has not said how many workers will lose their jobs because of that consolidation. Hughes also employs about 1,250 employees at semiconductor manufacturing and research operations in Newport Beach.
The company has supplied 24 radars to Norway’s air defense system and it is aiding TRW Inc. as a subcontractor for developing a control network for the system.
The contract announced Thursday is the biggest for the Hughes unit since July, 1991, when the company won an $837-million contract to build an air-defense system for Saudi Arabia.
Hughes beat six other competitors for the contract: Lockheed Sanders Inc., Raytheon Corp., Plessy Radar, and teams consisting of Raytheon and Siemens-Nixdorf, Titan Corp. and Ericsson Inc.; Martin Marietta Corp. and Contraves-Italiana, and LTV Aerospace and Defense Co./Signaal.
