Comarco Stung by Losing Bid for Navy Work : Defense: Company misses out on $400-million contract and current one expires next month.

Comarco Inc., an engineering and management services company, said Monday that it lost out on a $400-million contract at the China Lake Naval Weapons Center and that its current five-year, $128-million contract at the facility will expire in September.

The present contract, for providing engineering and manpower support at the base, represented about 20% of the company’s revenue and operating profit in the first six months of the current fiscal year.

“Naturally, we are extremely disappointed we were not selected,” Don M. Bailey, Comarco president said in a statement. “Our company has been supporting the Navy at China Lake for over 30 years, and we had hoped to continue that relationship.”

China Lake is a major Navy weapons testing center on a dry lake bed in the Mojave Desert, about 100 miles north of Los Angeles. Many base operations are run by civilian services, including Comarco.

The upcoming contract will consolidate the work being done by several suppliers. A Navy spokeswoman at China Lake said that to her knowledge the new contractor has not yet been chosen.

Eva Evans, Comarco vice president, said the company has not determined how to cope with the loss of a contract of this size. The company will press to have most of its 150 present employees at China Lake hired by the new contractor, whenever it is selected.

Locally, the company has six workers at its Yorba Linda headquarters and about 40 at its Wireless Communications division in Irvine, which manufactures testing devices for cellular telephone companies.

“We are going to have to do some restructuring,” Evans said.

Though the Navy’s China Lake job was its largest such contract, Comarco also has other military subcontracting work on Army and Navy facilities around the nation.

Comarco closed Monday at $4.875, down 12.5 cents, in Nasdaq trading.