Eaton Runs Aerospace Empire From Irvine
By SAMANTHA LEE
Before Sept. 11, attorney Dan Alexander said he didn’t think twice about Eaton Aerospace, which is located three floors below his Irvine-based firm, Watt, Tieder, Hoffar & Fitzgerald LLP. But since then, he said he’s more conscious of his neighbor.
“I was concerned,I didn’t really know what they did, or if the company was going to be a target,” Alexander said.
Eaton Aerospace, a unit of Cleveland-based Eaton Corp., calls Irvine’s Park Plaza home. The company is an unusual fit among the accountants, software developers and lawyers that dominate the Irvine office park.
Eaton’s Irvine office is a command center for the maker of hydraulic systems for military and commercial aircraft. The office is overseeing $1 billion in work on Lockheed Martin Corp.’s Joint Strike Fighter jet. Production is set to take place at Eaton facilities in Glendale, Mississippi and elsewhere.
“When you win (a contract like this), you really get to celebrate because it’s part of the company for 20 to 30 years,” said Brent Wisch, Eaton Aerospace’s vice president of sales and marketing.
Eaton counts just 21 executives, managers and other workers in Irvine. The company also has a 200-person plant in Costa Mesa. Eaton officials said they don’t expect to expand in Orange County with the Joint Strike Fighter project.
The military work should help Eaton offset an expected drop in commercial aviation business. Commercial work accounts for 55% of Eaton Aerospace’s $700 million in yearly sales. Military work makes up the rest.
On any given day, Eaton’s Irvine office is half empty with executives out visiting Eaton’s Cleveland headquarters or the aerospace unit’s 16 other U.S. and European facilities, according to spokesman Peter Parsons.
Steve Eisenberg, an Eaton company vice president, heads the Irvine office. Senior managers oversee acquisitions, divestitures, technology, financial planning and supply chain management for the aerospace unit.
The Irvine office oversees Eaton Aerospace’s U.S. and European facilities, where products are developed and made. Decisions on production, sales and marketing and technology are made in Irvine, according to Wisch. Eaton Aerospace counts 4,000 workers in all.
Eaton’s aerospace arm got its start as a four-person operation in El Segundo. In 1999, Eaton bought Maumee, Ohio-based fluid power company Aeroquip-Vickers Inc., a move that pushed the aerospace unit’s yearly sales up fivefold.
According to Wisch, Eaton picked Irvine for its aerospace headquarters as a way to attract executives.
Irvine also is close to Eaton’s Costa Mesa and Glendale plants, which, along with the aerospace headquarters, make up the company’s “California contingent,” according to Parsons.
The Costa Mesa plant products cockpit controls, switches and panels for customers such as Boeing Co., Bombardier Inc. and Textron Inc.’s Cessna Aircraft Co.
The Glendale division houses hydraulics component maker Sterer Engineering, a 300-person unit that’s set to be one of Eaton Aerospace’s main units working on the Joint Strike Fighter.
Eaton Aerospace plans to provide fluid power systems that control landing gear, tail rudder and wing flaps on the fighter jet.
