More on Boeing's Layoffs
Boeing's satellite business in El Segundo and Seal Beach announced Wednesday that they would lay off 750 employees. Here's a few items that were cut out of our original story because of space issues:
In an April interview, Craig Cooning said the integration of the former Hughes employees into Boeing's corporate structure was successful.
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The layoffs and recent GPS contract loss to Lockheed come after Boeing's seemingly successful efforts to reconstitute itself as a premier satellite builder.
For example, in 2001, Boeing's reputation was hurt by the discovery of malfunctions in the solar arrays of its 702 satellites, the company's largest.
In 2005, the Department of National Intelligence stripped Boeing of part of a major spy satellite contract because of continued cost, schedule and technical problems. That cost Boeing hundreds of millions of dollars.
The setbacks were an embarrassment for Boeing, whose 1 million-square-foot El Segundo facility has built about 300 satellites, more than any other facility in the world.
Yet, Boeing seemed to put those problems behind it as it limited technical glitches and won new contracts.
Aerospace analyst Paul Nisbet said he saw no evidence that the GPS contract loss was due to technical problems. He noted that Boeing has built most GPS satellites.
"Over the years with the GPS, Lockheed had been building one-third and Boeing two-thirds, and this might just have been Lockheed's turn," Nisbet said.
Here's the original story.