Frontiers - Space-Library

PHOTOS: (Left and inset top left) George Alexander, left,
and Rickey Pope package a Patriot Advanced Capability-3
missile seeker for shipment to the prime contractor for final
assembly. (Inset bottom right) Jennifer Clark, left, and
William Scott install a PAC-3 seeker into a vibration test
fixture. bob ferguson/boeing
a
an overall economic impact of
$1.5 billion, with $415 million
going directly to 264 suppliers
across the state last year. And
Boeing and its employees gave
$2.5 million in 2011 to a range
of charitable causes including
tornado relief efforts.
Anthony “Tony” Jones, vice
president for site operations,
notes the diversity of programs at the Huntsville site has become
its strength.
“We reach out and touch every business unit, including
Commercial Airplanes,” he said. “Our core competency is our
people. These guys are rocket scientists in some cases; all
our employees are passionate about their programs.”
The latest win for Boeing Huntsville was the U.S. Missile
Defense Agency’s decision last December to award Boeing the
Development and Sustainment Contract for future work on
the GMD program. That keeps Boeing as the prime contractor, said
Dwight Potter, retired transition manager for the GMD program.
“GMD is the franchise program in the Strategic Missile and
Defense Systems division, so keeping that firm foothold in the
missile defense business was crucial,” Potter said. Along with the
new space exploration contracts, the GMD extension “continues
to keep Huntsville in a viable position for the future, for at least
the next seven to 10 years,” he added.
It wasn’t always so.
After Boeing established Huntsville operations to support
initial development of the Saturn V rocket’s first-stage booster,
the site grew to a peak of about 4,500 employees in 1966.
Growth leveled off after the Saturn rockets began launching, then
reversed in the 1970s after the Apollo lunar exploration trips ended.
By the early 1980s, the site’s staff numbered fewer than 50.
In 1981, Boeing moved its Automated Test Systems business
and more than 100 employees from Wichita, Kan., to Huntsville.
Other programs, many small and a few big, have arrived since then.
David Zajic, a production engineering manager at the Huntsville
BOEING FRONTIERS / SEPTEMBER 2012
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