Rockwell International
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Rockwell International was one of America's premier companies in the latter half of the 20th century. It was the ultimate incarnation of a series of companies under the sphere of influence of Colonel Willard F. Rockwell, who had made his fortune after the invention and successful launch of a new bearing system for truck axles in 1919. It is important to note that Col. Rockwell was the Chairman of the War Production Board during WWII.
Primary among the constituents of the final company were the Rockwell Spring and Axle Company (itself a merger of a number of automotive suppliers), which formed into Rockwell-Standard, a group of 10 to 20 factories located primarily in the upper mid-west US and southern Ontario. Pittsburgh based Rockwell Standard then acquired and merged with Los Angeles based North American Aviation to form North American Rockwell in 1967 (around the time of the Apollo 1 tragedy). They then purchased or merged with Miehle-Goss-Dexter, the largest supplier of printing presses, and in 1973 acquired Collins Radio, a major avionics supplier. Finally they merged with Rockwell Manufacturing, run by Willard Rockwell Jr., and formed Rockwell International in 1973. In the mid-1970's, Rockwell acquired Admiral Radio & TV in 1973 for $500 million and sold off the appliance division later to Magic Chef.
The various companies in the Rockwell empire list a huge number of firsts, including the famous WWII P-51 Mustang fighter and the B-25 Mitchell Bomber; and the Korean War-era F-86 Sabre, as well as the Apollo spacecraft, the B-1 Lancer bomber, the Space Shuttle, and most of the Navstar Global Positioning System satellites. Rocketdyne, which had been spun off by North American in 1955 was re-merged into Rockwell in 1984, and by this point produced most of the rocket engines used in the US. Rockwell also took over and manufactured the light business aircraft previously known as Aero Commanders, then introduced their own new design as the Rockwell Commander 112 and 114.
The company developed a desktop calculator based on a MOSFET chip for use by its legions of engineers. In 1967 Rockwell set up their own manufacturing plant to produce them, starting what would become Rockwell Semiconductor. One of their major successes came in the early 1990s when they introduced the first low-cost 14.4 kbit/s modem chip set, which was used in a huge number of modems.
Collins Radios were fitted to 80% of the free world's airliners. They designed and built the radios that communicated the Apollo moon landings and the high frequency radio network that allows worldwide communication with US military aircraft. Rockwell designed and built the third stage of the Minuteman Intercontinental ballistic missile, (ICBM) and the AIRS inertial guidance system (INS) that provided its navigation. They also built inertial navigation systems for the Fleet of Ballistic Missile submarines.
Rockwell also built most of the heavy duty truck axles in the US along with power, windows, seats and locks. It later developed railroad electronics; in 1985, it acquired Allen-Bradley. Rockwell also built yachts, business jets and owned large amounts of real estate.
With the death of its founder and first CEO Colonel Willard F. Rockwell in 1978 and the stepping down of his son Willard Rockwell Jr. in 1979 as the second CEO, Bob Anderson became CEO and led the company through the 1980s where the company became the largest US defense contractor and largest NASA contractor. Rockwell also acquired the privately held Allen-Bradley Company for $1.6 billion in February of 1985 -- $1 billion of which was cash to the owners of Allen Bradley During the 1980s, Anderson, his CFO Bob dePalma and the strong Rockwell management team successfully built the Pittsburgh company to the point where it was #27 on the Fortune 500 list, had a workforce of 100,000 plus, sales of $12 billion and assets of over $8 billion.
By the late 1980s Rockwell International had nine major divisions: Space, Aircraft, Defense Electronics, Commercial Electronics, Light Duty Automotive Components, Heavy Duty Automotive Components, Printing Presses, Valves and Meters, and Industrial Automation. By this time, Rockwell International was a major employer in southern California, Ohio, Georgia, Oklahoma, Michigan, Texas, Iowa, Illinois and western Pennsylvania.
After Anderson stepped down as CEO in February 1988, the company, over an approximate 10 to 13 year period, began a long series of spin-offs which slowly dismantled this successful organization. From 1988 to 2001 the company moved its headquarters four times: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to El Segundo, California to Seal Beach, California to Costa Mesa, California to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
In the very late 80's, the company sold its valve and meter division (formerly Rockwell Mfg.) to British Tire and Rubber. It also sold its printing press division to an internal management team. Following the "peace dividend" spoken of often in Washington in the early 1990s as a result of the fall of the Soviet bloc, the company sold its defense and aerospace business (including what was once North American Aviation and Rocketdyne) to Boeing Integrated Defense Systems in December 1996. In the 1990s, the company spun off its semiconductor products as Conexant Technologies (CNXT), which is publicly traded and based in Newport Beach, California. Rockwell International also spun off its automotive division as a publicly traded company, Meritor Automotive, based in Troy, Michigan, which then merged with Arvin Industries to form Arvin Meritor. In 2001, what remained of Rockwell International was split into two companies: Rockwell Automation and Rockwell Collins, both publicly traded companies. The once massive and successfully diverse conglomerate built by CEOs Col. Rockwell and Anderson has splintered.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- North American Rockwell history on Boeing.com
- Rockwell International history on Boeing.com
- Boeing's Australian website page on Rockwell history
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