Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American global aerospace, warfare and defense technology company formed by the 1994 purchase of Grumman by Northrop. The company was the fourth-largest defense contractor in the world as of 2010. Northrop Grumman employs over 68,000 people worldwide. It reported revenues of 25.218 billion in 2012. Northrop Grumman ranks No. 72 on the 2011 Fortune 500 list of America's largest corporations and ranks in the top ten military-friendly employers. It is headquartered in West Falls Church, Virginia.
Originally formed in California in 1939 by Jack Northrop, the Northrop Corporation was reincorporated in Delaware in 1985. In 1994, Northrop Aircraft merged with Grumman Aerospace to create the company Northrop Grumman. Both companies were previously established in the airplane manufacturing industry, and Grumman was famous for building the Apollo Lunar Module. The new company acquired Westinghouse Electronic Systems in 1996, a major manufacturer of radar systems. Logicon, a defense computer contractor, was added in 1997. Previously, Logicon had acquired Geodynamics Corporation in March 1996 and Syscon Corporation in February 1995. A merger between Northrop Grumman and competitor Lockheed Martin was not approved by the U.S. government in 1998, slowing the consolidation of the defense industry. But in 1999, the company acquired Teledyne Ryan, which developed surveillance systems and unmanned aircraft. It also acquired California Microwave, Inc., and Data Procurement Corporation, in the same year. Other entities acquired included Xetron Corporation (1996), Inter-National Research Institute Inc. (1998), Federal Data Corporation (2000), Navia Aviation As (2000), Comptek Research, Inc. (2000), and Sterling Software, Inc. (2000). In 1999, Northrop Grumman and SAIC created AMSEC LLC as a joint venture, which grew "from $100 million in revenue in 2000 to approximately $500 million in fiscal year 2007."
In 2001 the company acquired Litton Industries, a shipbuilder and provider of defense electronics systems to the U.S. Navy. During the acquisition process, a new Delaware holding company, NNG, Inc., was formed. It merged with Northrop Grumman through a one-for-one common shares exchange in April 2001. Both Northrop Grumman and Litton became subsidiaries of the new holding company. The original Northrop Grumman Corporation then changed its name to Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation; the holding company, NNG, Inc., changed its name to Northrop Grumman Corporation.
Later that year, Newport News Shipbuilding was added to the company. And in 2002, Northrop Grumman acquired TRW, which became the Space Technology sector based in Redondo Beach, CA, and the Mission Systems sector based in Reston, VA, with sole interest in their space systems and laser systems manufacturing. The Aeronautical division was sold to Goodrich, and the automotive divisions were spun off and retained the TRW name. On March 19, 1999, Northrop Grumman announced to restate its fourth-quarter results downward to a net loss because of problems related to its dealings with start-up satellite launch company Kistler Aerospace Corp. On November 1, 2001, Northrop Grumman restated its third-quarter profit after stopping work on two ships for American Classic Voyages, which filed for bankruptcy protection.
There have been many other smaller acquisitions throughout this period. On July 20, 2007, Northrop Grumman became the sole owner of Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites. Northrop Grumman and Boeing have also recently collaborated on a design concept for NASA's upcoming Orion spacecraft (previously the Crew Exploration Vehicle), but that contract went to rival Lockheed Martin on August 31, 2006. Northrop Grumman announced formation of a new business unit (sector), effective January 1, 2006 called Technical Services. In 2007 Northrop Grumman created the National Workforce Centers. The National Workforce centers are an alternative to Offshoring. Current locations are Auburn, AL; Corsicana, TX; Fairmont, WV; Helena, MT; Johnstown, PA; and Lebanon, VA. The Rapid City, SD location will be closing in January 2012. Three employees of Northrop Grumman (Thomas Howes, Marc Gonsalves and Keith Stansell) were freed in July 2008 after five years of captivity in Colombia during Operation Jaque. Tom Janis, also a former Northrop employee, was killed by the FARC shortly after their plane crashed in the Colombian jungle in 2003. In January 2008, Northrop Grumman combined its Newport News and Ship Systems sectors into a new business unit named Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding. On March 31, 2011 this was spun off as Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc Northrop Grumman won a training-simulation contract in July 2013 potentially worth $490 million to support the U.S. Air Force's next-generation air-combat virtual-training network
