Allied-Signal Revamps Units, Names Officers

Allied-Signal Aerospace Co., a $4.7-billion Los Angeles-based operation, has completed the final reorganization of its Bendix and Garrett operations and appointed several new top executives.

Under the realignment, the company’s 27 Bendix and Garrett divisions have been reshuffled into four operating groups, each generating more than $1 billion in sales, President Roy H. Ekrom said in an interview.

The move is not intended to downsize or streamline the company, but completes the assimilation of the Bendix and Garrett operations into a single business entity, Ekrom said. There will not be any effect on the aerospace company’s 56,000 employees, of which about 7,399 are in Southern California. Six of the 27 divisions are in the Los Angles area.

Allied-Signal Aerospace, a unit of Morris Township, N.J.-based Allied-Signal, is “doing well,” despite the downturn in defense contracting, Ekrom said. The operation produces a wide range of aerospace products, including aircraft brakes, wheels, engines, radios, pressurization systems and a wide variety of avionics.

About half of the company’s sales are in commercial aircraft equipment, and it has won several key military programs in the past year, including a $4-billion program to build the Mark XV identification friend-or-foe system.

In addition, it has been selected by the Army to produce the turbine engine for the LHX helicopter program, the largest Army aviation program in history. Ekrom said the company is expanding its line of jet engines and moving into larger thrust classes, but will never compete directly with General Electric or Pratt & Whitney, the dominant jet engine manufacturers.

“We feel there is a good market in the 10,000-pound thrust class,” Ekrom said. “We don’t ever see ourselves going after engines for the 747.” A typical 747 engine produces about 50,000 pounds of thrust.

Robert Choulet was named president of the newly formed Allied-Signal engine group. Choulet had been senior vice president for marketing since January, 1988. Gerald Brucker replaces Choulet in that job.

Grank Geldert was named president of the services group, Karl Fledderjohn the AiResearch group and Elmar Klotz the Avionics Group.