Northrop Grumman [NOC] said yesterday that by 2011 it will move its corporate office from Los Angeles to the Washington, D.C., region, bringing its company leaders closer to key customers in the federal government.
The company is already searching for a location in the area, including the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia, and plans to select a site by this spring. The new corporate office will have about 300 employees.
The announcement coincides with Wes Bush taking the helm at Northrop Grumman from Ron Sugar on Jan. 1 (Defense Daily, Sept. 17, 2009).
“As a global security company with a large customer base in the Washington, D.C., region, this move will enable us to better serve our nation and customers,” Bush, the company’s president and CEO, said in a statement.
Northrop Grumman has about 40,000 employees in the Washington, D.C., region, extending from its shipbuilding operations in Newport News, Va., all the way to Baltimore, Md., where its Electronic Systems sector is headquartered.
The company will retain a significant presence in California where one-quarter, or about 30,000, of its employees are. The company’s Aerospace Systems sector is headquartered in Southern California.
Last fall SAIC [SAI] relocated its corporate office from San Diego to Northern Virginia to be closer to its primary customers (Defense Daily, Sept. 25, 2009). Once Northrop Grumman completes its move, three of the big five defense contractors will have their corporate headquarters in the Washington area. General Dynamics [GD] is based in Northern Virginia and Lockheed Martin [LMT] in Maryland.