Hughes Aircraft to Hire Hundreds for New Unit

FULLERTON —  In a move to boost its commercial business, Hughes Aircraft Co. said it has formed a new Fullerton subsidiary that will develop a traffic management system and will likely hire several hundred people by 1995.

The subsidiary, Hughes Transportation Management Systems, will manage traffic projects, one of which is to introduce support and product-service technology for electronic toll and traffic management collection systems.

Robert W. Gregg, the new unit’s president, said he will guide the subsidiary through the start-up phase and into operation as an independent business.

The unit will initially be staffed by employees from Hughes’ existing Fullerton plant, Gregg said. By the end of 1993, he said, he hopes to have between 50 and 75 researchers and electronic engineers there. The unit could have about 700 employees by the year 2000, he said.

During that period, Gregg said in a telephone interview Friday, “we expect to begin operating some of the new generation of toll roads, and this will require a large mixture of skilled and unskilled employees. . . . For example, we’ll need relatively large numbers of toll-collection personnel, and we’ll need marketing, public relations people and electronic engineers.”

Gregg, formerly Hughes’ director of engineering and senior technical agent for intracompany matters, also said he is “searching for a suitable building to house the new operation” in Orange County.