Company Overview

Sprawling like the wide-bodied jet fighters it manufactures, Northrop Grumman is a heavyweight in the world of defense contractors. Northrop designs, integrates, and manufactures military surveillance and combat aircraft, defense electronics and systems, airspace management systems, information systems, marine systems, and precision weapons. The company has sold its commercial aerostructures segment but is holding onto its military aerostructures business.

Since 1990, Northrop has developed and expanded from being an aircraft manufacturer into its current status as one of the leaders in high-tech defense systems.  The company has operations in all 50 states and 25 countries. In 2001 and 2002, Northrop secured its position as a top gun in the defense field with several acquisitions, including Litton Industries, Newport News, TRW, and the electronics unit of GenCorp. Northrop is now a leading producer of military satellites and missile and integration systems. It also makes the B-2 stealth bomber, amphibious assault ships, and oil tankers.

The corporation’s Sperry Marine business unit scored one if the largest deals in the company’s history in March 2008, when it was chosen to supply the Machinery Control System (MCS) for the first of a new generation of large-deck amphibious assault ships for the U.S. Navy. The contract was expected to be worth approximately $47.6 million.

More goes on inside Northrop’s manufacturing centers than the production of some of the assembly of military aircraft parts. In March 2008, the company announced that more than 400 company employees from throughout Southern California teamed up with the United Service Organizations (USO) to stuff a record 16,200 Operation USO Care Packages for U.S. military personnel serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and other overseas locations, including members of the California National Guard. And Northrop employees are encouraged to support the USO in other ways: Since 2003, employees have donated more than $310,000 to the USO.