FORTUNE Magazine has released its annual list of America’s Most Admired Companies, and a number of defense-related firms find themselves noted in the data. To quote FORTUNE re: their methodology:
“The Most Admired list is the definitive report card on corporate reputations. Our survey partners at Hay Group started with the FORTUNE 1,000 – the 1,000 largest U.S. companies ranked by revenue – and the top foreign ones operating in the U.S. Hay sorted them by industry and selected the ten largest in each. To create the 63 industry lists, Hay asked executives, directors, and analysts to rate companies in their own industry on eight criteria, from investment value to social responsibility. Only the best are listed as most admired: A company’s score must rank in the top half of its industry survey. Ranks for the rest of the contenders are available online only.”
The criteria evidently managed to completely exclude key global defense & aerospace players with notable US businesses/revenues, including BAE Systems and EADS (which includes Airbus & Eurocopter). This is a major pair of omissions, to say the least. Methodology flaws aside, firms that made the cut in their sectors and do a lot of work in our industry – or were on the receiving end of cutting ratings – included:
While the USA prepares to field the next-generation E-2D Hawkeye as its next-generation naval AWACS, existing Hawkeye customers continue to rely on the E-2C. In some cases, this means aircraft purchase requests (q.v. Egypt, UAE), which will become even more attractive as the US Navy’s E-2C fleet becomes available for resale. In other cases (France, Japan, some Egyptian, 2/6 in Taiwan), it has meant upgrades to the Hawkeye 2000 standard. All fleets, however, will require ongoing sustaining support, i.e. technical expertise and spares. Northrop Grumman Systems Corp. in Bethpage, NY recently picked up a couple of awards along those lines from foreign customers, channeled through US NAVAIR (Naval Air Systems Command) in Patuxent River, MD:
Dec 28/07: An $8.6 million firm-fixed-price, cost-plus-fixed-fee delivery order against a previously awarded basic ordering agreement (N00421-05-G-0001) for calendar year 2008 and 2009 sustaining support for the Egypt Foreign Military Sales E-2C aircraft program. Work will be performed in Bethpage, N.Y., and is expected to be complete in December 2009.
Dec 28/07: A $5.9 million firm-fixed-price, cost-plus-fixed-fee delivery order against a previously awarded basic ordering agreement (N00421-05-G-0001) for sustaining support for the Taiwan Foreign Military Sales E-2C aircraft program (actually known as E-2T) through calendar year 2008.
