Boeing to Move Combat Systems Jobs

Boeing Co. is expected to announce in the next few days that it is relocating the headquarters staff for its Army Future Combat Systems program from Anaheim to St. Louis.

A Boeing official on Wednesday confirmed the move, but said that for now the relocation will involve only a “dozen or two” jobs being transferred to St. Louis. Most of the 200 workers in Anaheim are likely to remain there, the official said.

Sen. Christopher S. “Kit” Bond (R-Mo.), in an interview with Associated Press Wednesday evening, broke the news of the move, saying that the program’s relocation would bring “several hundred jobs to St. Louis.”

The Boeing official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said most of those jobs will be new and not transfers from Anaheim. Boeing expects to create about 150 jobs in St. Louis.

A member of the defense spending panel of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Bond announced the move after Boeing officials notified him of the decision Wednesday evening, the Associated Press said.

Boeing, which last year moved the headquarters of its space and communications business from Seal Beach to St. Louis, was scheduled to make the announcement next week, but now is likely to shift the timetable.

The move is being made at the request of the Army so that the office can be centrally located, with hundreds of contractors expected to work on the program, a source said.

In a major upset, Boeing won the coveted Future Combat Systems contract last year. The contract, potentially worth $10 billion over the next decade, calls for developing an entire network of new weapons, communication systems and intelligence-gathering sensors that the Pentagon hopes will one day revolutionize the way the Army fights battles.