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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

Group Trying to Prevent Move of Rocketdyne

Group Trying to Prevent Move of Rocketdyne By CARLOS MARTINEZ Staff Reporter After finding out that the company has received overtures from Alabama officials to move to their state, Los Angeles City Councilman Dennis P. Zine has formed an advisory committee to keep Boeing Co.’s Rocketdyne division in the West Valley. Although Rocketdyne is an immediate concern, Zine said the group will examine ways to keep all companies thinking of moving out of Los Angeles from doing so because of the high cost of doing business here. Zine, who represents much of the West Valley, last month created the committee which includes Bruce Ackerman, president and chief executive of the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley and Bill Powers, chairman of the United Chambers of Commerce of the San Fernando Valley and a number of other local business people. The group aims to cut city hall red tape and improve the business environment for companies in the Valley and throughout the city. “We want L.A. to be a business friendly city and I’m trying to put words into action,” said Zine who said he plans to ask county supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky and Michael Antonovich to join the group. Atop Zine’s agenda is developing a plan that would keep Rocketdyne from leaving the Valley for potential sites in Alabama, where the company already operates testing facilities for its rocket engines. Dan Beck, a spokesman for Rocketdyne, said the company has received much interest from communities in Alabama about moving the company’s operations there. “We’ve received overtures from communities in the area, but no solid offers,” Beck said. He added that the company, which has been located in Canoga Park since the 1940s, has no plans to move. “But we’ll listen to people if they have a proposal that can work for us,” he said. Rocketdyne is known for developing the mammoth Saturn V rocket engines that powered the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Apollo program and for developing the Space Shuttle’s main engines. Today, the firm manufactures engines for Delta IV unmanned rockets. It employs 3,000 people at its two Canoga Park facilities. Thousands of jobs U.S. Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Alabama, wants Huntsville, Ala., and other nearby communities to woo Rocketdyne in order to bring thousands of new jobs to his home state. But Cramer stopped short of saying the communities are actively seeking to lure Rocketdyne. “California is an expensive place for aerospace firms to do business and many of them want to leave the state,” he said. A spokeswoman for the city of Decatur, Ala., near Huntsville, denied the city has approached the aerospace firm about moving there. Joe Vallelly, Huntsville economic development director, where NASA operates the Marshall Space Center, said he could not confirm nor deny that the city is attempting to lure Rocketdyne. “I admit that any community would greatly benefit from having a company like Rocketdyne, but I can’t say much more than that,” he said. Rocketdyne already operates a testing facility in Huntsville and its parent Boeing, last year closed its Titan IV rocket plant in Colorado and moved its operation into a similar facility in Decatur. Much like Lockheed Martin, which moved many of its operations to the South in the early 1990s, Rocketdyne may soon follow unless things change, Zine said. “We have to figure out ways to keep these companies here and keep those jobs here,” Zine said. “We have to work with city and county officials and state legislators to develop a plan and implement it as quickly as possible.” Zine said his committee plans to examine city regulations, taxes, the permit process and even take on the high cost of workers’ comp insurance in the state. Powers said he hoped the group would ultimately gain enough momentum to improve the business environment in the state. Ackerman said he doesn’t know whether the advisory group’s efforts would be able to keep Rocketdyne from moving, but added that something needs to be done to keep other companies from leaving the state. “We really have the perfect storm brewing out there that’s going to impact us all unless something is done,” he said.

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