The CEO of aerospace and defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. touted the company’s work at its manufacturing facilities in south Arkansas on Tuesday and outlined its efforts to integrate cutting-edge technology into its systems to deter armed conflict.
James D. Taiclet, chairman, president and CEO of the publicly traded Bethesda, Maryland, company, was the keynote speaker at the annual Arkansas Economic Development Foundation luncheon at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock.
Taiclet, who has led Lockheed since 2020, said the 1,100 workers at its operations in the Highland Industrial Park in East Camden are making a big difference in conflicts around the world. More than 100 countries rely on the Locheed’s technologies, which include its Camden-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), now a widely recognized weapon globally. Footage of its use in the Ukraine war brought it wide attention.
“I don’t think anybody in Iran, Russia, China or North Korea can keep up with the people we have in Camden, Arkansas,” Taiclet said.
Taiclet visited the Highland Park operations this week. The company has been operating there for nearly 50 years, and today is looking to add another 200 or so workers as production ramps up amid growing conflicts around the world. Taiclet said about 40% of Arkansas assemblers are women, and 10% served in the military.
Taiclet, a former U.S. Air Force pilot, came to Lockheed after 20 years in the telecommunications industry. He was previously CEO of American Tower Corp. of Boston, a global, publicly traded real estate investment trust of multitenant communications real estate.
There, he said, he got an early look at the technologies he thinks can reshape the defense industry, including secured 5G, distributed cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
Taiclet is now aiming to bring more of that technology to Lockheed. The company is investing $6 billion over eight years to upgrade its entire operation.
“We’re going to harness those digital technologies and build the kind of networks you need to do this — these are 5G internet of things networks that don’t exist for any nation in the world — we’re going to build the first one here in the United States for our national defense,” he said.
Lockheed Martin has 114,000 employees worldwide. In Arkansas, it has been hiring assemblers, inspectors, engineers and other professionals, Aaron Huckaby, Lockheed’s Camden operations site director, told Arkansas Business last year. It has also partnered with local schools and colleges, including Southern Arkansas University Tech in Camden, to cultivate a skilled workforce for its operations there.
Lockheed Martin’s mobile rocket launcher plant in East Camden has been increasing production of the HIMARS system since it proved itself on the battlefield, and voters selected the rocket system as the “Coolest Thing Made in Arkansas” in a contest last year.
Lockheed Martin makes HIMARS and refurbishes an older version in the Highland Industrial Park, home to a cluster of other defense companies like Aerojet Rocketdyne. Lockheed even moved to acquire Aerojet in a $4.4 billion deal, but that plan fell through last year.
Stock in Lockheed, the world’s largest defense company ranked by sales, traded at around $454 per share (NYSE: LMT) on Tuesday.
Sign up for Daily E-news
