As a second generation Northrop Grumman Corp. employee, Mike Jones has spent more time around the aerospace industry than most workers at the global defense contractor. As a child, Jones would accompany his father to the Northrop facility in Hawthorne. As an adult, he started his career by moving out of state to work on a program for the company, now based in West Falls, Va. Today he is the deputy site manager and director of the Palmdale Manufacturing Center. He is second in command to Tommy Tomlinson, the site manager in Palmdale who also serves as vice president of operations for the aerospace systems division of Northrop. The Palmdale center encompasses nearly 2 million square feet and has produced some of the U.S. military’s most widely used aircraft, including the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, which still returns to the plant for routine maintenance, and the Global Hawk drone that can double as a science research aircraft. A state-of-the-art automated assembly line produces fuselages for the F-35 Lightning II fighter jet. Jones’ role is to keep the facility ticking and overseeing the manufacturing process to ensure quality aircraft are delivered on time. Question: I understand your father worked for the company too. Answer: I’m a second generation Northrop Grumman employee. My father had 25 years with the company and I hired on at a young age. He used to bring me in to his office when I was like 10 years old. Where did your father work? Hawthorne. He was manager in the fabrication center. Was it expected that you would work at Northrop? The opportunity presented itself and I capitalized on the moment. From then on it took its own legs. How did the opportunity present itself? Aloft: A B-2 bomber in flight. A program needed help and I was flexible enough to move out of state to assist. That was during the heyday of aerospace in Southern California? It was the late 1970s. In 1979 we saw a little lull. I survived a layoff after about a year with the company, stayed in production operations and moved into different jobs and then relocated to different facilities and different programs within the corporation. I spent 11 years in Louisiana. Did your tenure overlap with your father’s and how was that experience? It did overlap with my dad for a short period but family members working at Northrop Grumman was very common when I hired on and still is today. He provided some great direction to me as I transitioned into the company. Where is your father today? He enjoyed retirement for 25 years. He passed on in 2007. As deputy site manager, what is your role at the facility? I have responsibility for production operations here at the site for all programs. My primary responsibility revolves around providing people, processes, technology and tools to our integrated product team. How does Palmdale fit into the overall Northrop Grumman structure? It is one of our fastest-growing manufacturing sites. It is one of nine facilities within aerospace systems. We are currently right around 3,000 employees. It is owned by the Air Force and we lease the facility. We occupy roughly 2 million square feet out of the 3.6 million square feet that is on the Plant 42 premises. We build the F-35, the B-2, Global Hawk and Triton. There are other programs that we cannot talk about. What makes this facility one of the fastest growing? It is a world-class facility and we fly both manned and unmanned vehicle out of the facility. We have made a lot of investment in the infrastructure in terms of offices, computer systems and the right technology for our employees. We put in a brand new integrated assembly for the F-35 to give our employees the best of the best. We’ve gone from roughly 2,200 people to 3,000 over the last 18 months. What challenges is Northrop Grumman facing in Palmdale? Overall the company is doing well. A challenge the defense industry as a whole is facing is what the defense budget looks like going forward. Sequestration is still looming. We are focused on performance, providing a quality product on time within the established budgets we’ve been given. How has the manufacturing process changed? Technology is changing at a fast clip and we as a company are making the right investments to keep up with technology to provide our employees with the right tools so we can work in a more efficient manner (and) maintain our competitiveness in this industry. Can you give an example or two of the innovations used in Palmdale? Paperless work instructions, robotic technology, transitioning away from manual process to an automated focus. We have computers at the work stations. We have 3-D graphic displays of a particular job or installation. How long have you been here? I’ve been here eight years. I spent seven years here on the B-2 program in the late 80s and 90s. During the last eight years have you always been the deputy site manager? I’ve been in a number of different positions on different program but always within the production operations element. And how long have you been with Northrop total? I’ve been with the company for 33 years, soon to be 34 years. I’ve spent most of my time in production operations, program management. Do you have an engineering background? I have a business background, but manufacturing focused. In your tenure have you set specific career goals and what did you do to achieve those? Over time I found this is a great company and there was a lot of opportunity. In my career I’ve told myself I need to be flexible and where the company needed me I would go. I’ve moved several times to different hotspots. Being flexible and being able to support the company’s objectives has paid dividends for me as an individual. Northrop Grumman donated three aircraft to the Palmdale Aerospace Academy charter school. Why was that important to be involved with the school? Collaborating and building partnerships with the community is clearly a priority. We are one of the biggest employers in the valley. Investing in the future of these young students is important to us as a company, but it is also important to us as an industry. Getting local students interested in technology and aerospace engineering is a valuable investment for this industry and for our future workforce. How are the aircrafts used at the school? They are used for display. They are also used in the classroom to keep that aerospace presence in the academy – that these are products that we built and are out in the world today. What other efforts is the company doing to get young people interested in engineering and the sciences? We are active with the high schools that have robotics teams in the valley. We provide mini grants to support both math and science classroom needs – purchasing calculators, microscopes, etc. We have teams of engineers and other leaders who go out to the community and schools and give presentations on careers available at Northrop Grumman. Can young people visit your facility? We have a high school involvement program called HIP where high school students come in and get credit for working at Northrop Grumman part time. It gives an opportunity to intern here when they go away to college. Every year there are 30-plus high school students that come in and help out for a few hours a day and it’s worked out very well. Did you get that same education when you were younger? I really didn’t. I’ve seen a change in my own career as far as mentoring, company involvement. I think we are far more proactive today. We are clearly engaged in all facets and focusing on education at the grammar, middle and high school level is something we really make a priority. What about students beyond high school? We work with the Antelope Valley College. These are individuals who go to school on their own and graduate with a certificate that they have met all the requirements to get a job as a manufacturing technician here at Northrop Grumman. Can you give an example of that? On the F-35 program we grew at such a rapid rate that about 30 percent of our workforce came out of that Antelope Valley (College) curriculum. We have a waiting list of about 200 people. As we continue to grow we capitalize on a workforce that resides here in the community. That has been a huge advantage to the company. Did the company help develop the curriculum? We were involved and worked with the local college and it has been a complete success. We have a team of managers that will be down there because we do have some openings. We are going to be interviewing graduates of that school and offering them jobs. Is there something about the Antelope Valley that is conducive to the aerospace industry? This valley as a whole has always been a mecca for aerospace. We share Plant 42 with Boeing, Lockheed Martin and NASA. There are roughly 7,500 employees in total in the Plant 42 perimeter that are involved in some level of aerospace activity. Is there much interaction with your counterparts at those other companies? On occasion. We have a lot of interaction with the (Air Force) commander who provides oversight for Plant 42. As we have common interests, whether it’s for facilities or programs, there is some interaction. Is the space Northrop using adequate or do you see a need to expand in Palmdale? As the defense budget stabilizes and if we look at our future growth and where the company is going overall, there are some facilities that are available in Plant 42 but today we are not pursuing any of those. Not to say that we won’t in the future. You work for a company that makes aircraft. Are you a pilot? I am not. We have our own pilots and fly manned vehicles, such as the B-2, and unmanned vehicles, Global Hawk for example, out of this facility.
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