HISTORY
Col.
Willard F. Rockwell made his
fortune with the invention
and successful launch of a
new bearing system for truck
axles in 1919. He merged his
Oshkosh, Wisconsin-based
operation with the
Timken-Detroit Axle Company
in 1928, rising to become
chairman of its board in
1940.
Timken-Detroit merged in
1953 with the Standard Steel
Spring Company, forming the
Rockwell Spring and Axle
Company. After various
mergers with automotive
suppliers, it comprised
about 10-20 factories in the
Upper Midwestern U.S. and
southern Ontario, and in
1958 renamed itself
Rockwell-Standard
Corporation.
Pittsburgh-based Rockwell
Standard then acquired and
merged with Los
Angeles-based
North
American Aviation
to form
North American Rockwell
in September 1967. It
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, in 1973 the company
merged with Rockwell
Manufacturing, run by
Willard Rockwell Jr., to
form Rockwell International.
In the same year, the
company acquired Admiral
Radio and TV for $500
million. In 1979, the
appliance division was sold
to Magic Chef.
Rockwell International
also
drew on the strengths of
several of George
Westinghouse's concerns, and
Westinghouse is considered a
co-founder of the company.
With
the death of company founder
and first CEO Willard
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 when it became the
largest U.S. defense
contractor and largest NASA
contractor. Rockwell also
acquired the privately held
Allen-Bradley Company for
$1.6 billion in February
1985 — $1 billion of which
was cash to the owners of
Allen Bradley — and became a
producer of railroad
electronics.
During the 1980s, Anderson,
his CFO Bob dePalma and the
Rockwell management team
built the company to #27 on
the Fortune 500 list. It
boasted sales of $12 billion
and assets of over $8
billion. Its workforce of
over 100,000 was organized
into 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. Rockwell
International was a major
employer in Southern
California, Ohio, Georgia,
Oklahoma, Michigan, Texas,
Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin
and western Pennsylvania.
Anderson stepped down as CEO
in February 1988, leaving
the company to president
Donald R. Beall. The
completion of the
Space
Shuttle program and
cancellation of the
B-1
bomber had led to a decline
in revenues, and Beall
sought to diversify the
company away from government
contracts. The end of the
Cold War and deteriorating
economic conditions,
however, prompted
accelerated divestitures and
sweeping management reforms.
From 1988 to 2001 the
company moved its
headquarters four times:
from Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania to El Segundo,
California to Seal Beach,
California to Costa Mesa,
California to Milwaukee,
Wisconsin.
At
the end of the 1980s, the
company sold its valve and
meter division, formerly
Rockwell Manufacturing, to
British Tyre & Rubber. It
also sold its printing press
division to an internal
management team. Following
the "peace dividend" after
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. That
company is now known as
Meritor, Inc.
In
2001, what remained of
Rockwell International was
split into two companies,
Rockwell Automation and
Rockwell Collins — both
publicly traded companies —
ending the run of what had
once been a massive and
diverse conglomerate.
Source:
Wikipedia
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