Hughes Aircraft Co

Within a maze of cubicles at a Hughes Aircraft Co. division here is a laboratory that employees have nicknamed Arnold's Sandbox. Inside, Arnold Klayman has been playing with his invention, the AK-100. The AK-100 conjures up visions of a new assault rifle from a company whose reputation was built over four decades as a manufacturer of sophisticated weapons ranging from radar systems to missiles. But the AK-100, which bears Klayman's initials, has nothing to do with the weapons industry.

You can tell a lot about a place by knowing a little about the people who started the best-known businesses there. The knowledge tells you, for instance, what it has taken to succeed and survive in the local economy. Although Southern California is sometimes accused of having a short memory about its past, not all its businesses have been flashes in the pan. In fact, it has no shortage of long-established, successful companies.

In the summer of 1984, while the attention of Los Angeles was riveted on the Olympics, the engineers at Hughes Aircraft in El Segundo had something quite different to occupy their minds. The radar antenna they had designed for the B-2 Stealth bomber--like no other antenna ever imagined before--would not work, though only a handful of people at Hughes and B-2 prime contractor Northrop knew it. The radar program was one of the most secret parts of the top-secret bomber project.

Hughes Aircraft Co. received a $12.7-million subcontract from Dornier GmbH to supply an air defense system to the German Air Force. Hughes said it will tailor its product, Sentry, to meet the air force's specific requirements.

Hughes Aircraft Co. said it will lay off about 90 workers at its microelectronics plant in Newport Beach over the next three months. Hughes Aircraft, a unit of GM-Hughes Electronics Corp., the big Los Angeles-based defense and electronics firm, said the layoffs were the result of lower demand for certain "hybrid" chips that are used mainly in radar for jet fighters. "It's basically a declining product line," Hughes spokesman Richard Dore said.

On a summer Saturday in 1993, a fiftysomething white guy wearing jeans and cowboy boots joined a street party in South-Central Los Angeles to celebrate the reopening of a small grocery store destroyed by the riots. Donning a Harley-Davidson baseball cap, he strolled through the neighborhood, mingling with a crowd that included rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg and members of the Crips and Bloods. That he was a big shot at Hughes Aircraft Co.

Hughes Confirms Sale of Irvine Unit: Hughes Aircraft Co. confirmed Friday that it has sold its Interconnect Systems Division to Packard Electric, which renamed the subsidiary Packard/Hughes Interconnect Systems. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. The division, which employs about 400 people, will remain headquartered in Irvine. It manufactures electronic connectors used in the automotive and aerospace industries.

In a blow to one of the county's "master-planned" communities, Hughes Aircraft Co. plans to close a division here by midyear and move the operation to Carlsbad, clouding the future of nearly 500 employees. The decision, announced Wednesday by the aerospace giant, is a setback for the Santa Margarita Co., which manages the 5,000-acre residential community and business park.

Hughes Wins Boeing Contract: Hughes Aircraft Co. said it has won a $20-million contract to build cable assemblies for Boeing Co.'s 747-400 and 767 jetliners. The five-year contract calls for Hughes' Interconnect Systems Division to supply devices to electrically wire passenger entertainment systems for new aircraft made by Seattle-based Boeing. The Hughes division in Irvine has been outfitting Boeing jumbo jets with cable assemblies during the last year.

Hughes Aircraft Fined: A federal judge ordered Hughes Aircraft Co., a subsidiary of General Motors Corp., to pay a $3.5-million fine for conspiring to falsify tests on electronic military components. Hughes and a former supervisor at its microelectronic circuits division in Newport Beach were indicted last December on charges that they faked test results on electronic circuits used in the F-14, F-15, F-16 and F-18 jet fighters, the Phoenix missile and other systems.

Rep. Jane Harman's 1994 campaign for Congress benefited from $21,000 illegally funneled from a Hughes Aircraft Co. fundraising event, but the violation was not deliberate, newly released documents show. The records were made public by the Federal Election Commission for the first time this week, a decade after Harman's opponent in the 1994 race sparked a minor campaign controversy by lodging a complaint with the commission about the fundraiser.

A Florida developer said Friday that it has bought a 41.5-acre site on the old Hughes Aircraft Co. property in Fullerton and will break ground next week on a $46-million shopping mall anchored by a Target Greatland store. Regency Realty Corp., a real estate investment trust in Jacksonville, said it paid $23.4 million to acquire the property, at Malvern Avenue and Gilbert Street, from SunCal Cos. in Anaheim.

William Hohri asked for the name of "one major private pension plan that provides for cost-of-living adjustments" for retirees (letter, Oct. 18). Hughes Aircraft Co.'s plan is one. This includes the time it was part of General Motors Corp. and the time it was part of Raytheon. I checked my records for the last three years and verified that my COLA percentage increases from the Hughes plan have consistently been a little greater than those for my Social Security payments. I've been receiving this kind of benefit treatment from the Hughes plan for nearly 20 years.

Public debate raged into the night Monday as the Fullerton City Council considered whether to approve a sprawling development on the former Hughes Aircraft site. The Amerige Heights complex would include 1,250 homes and a large commercial district on acreage that some residents have long argued is polluted. Several of the estimated 250 people packed into the council chambers and overflowing into the lobby spoke of their fears of contamination.

A Los Angeles race discrimination case that led to an $89.5-million jury award against Hughes Aircraft Co. must be retried, the California Supreme Court decided Monday. The unanimous ruling strongly reaffirmed the broad discretion of trial judges to toss out jury verdicts they believe are not supported by the evidence. The state high court sided with Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Malcolm H.

Loyola Marymount University will take over the long-vacant Westchester office building originally developed as the former Hughes Aircraft Co.'s world headquarters. The Roman Catholic university--whose campus is a stone's throw from the property commonly known as Hughes World Headquarters--is taking control of the striking hillside facility through a series of transactions valued at about $75 million. The university has purchased the land under the building.

The Supreme Court on Monday gave companies broad control over the handling of their pension funds, even when their employees have contributed to the fund and helped to create a large surplus. In a 9-0 ruling, the justices threw out a lawsuit brought by retirees from Hughes Aircraft Co., who maintained they should share in a $1.2-billion surplus in its pension fund. They complained that Hughes had diverted the money to other purposes, including paying for buyouts to encourage early retirements.

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear an appeal filed by Hughes Aircraft Co. in a case involving whether retirees from the Los Angeles-based aerospace firm are entitled to claim part of an estimated $1.2-billion surplus that accumulated in the company pension fund. The decision, expected early next year, could have a profound impact on how companies handle pensions in the future.

Raytheon Co. is expected to announce a consolidation plan as early as this week that will eliminate an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 jobs at its defense and aerospace operations nationwide, including at the former Hughes Aircraft facility in Fullerton, according to industry and company sources.

Raytheon Co. is expected to announce a consolidation plan as early as this week that will eliminate an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 jobs at its defense and aerospace operations nationwide, including at the former Hughes Aircraft facilities in Southern California, according to industry and company sources.