Melpar

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Melpar, Inc. was a company, and is now a division, that specializes in military and civilian government contracts in electronics, chemistry, bio-medicine, and other areas. Many, but not all, of its contracts are classified. The name came from combining the first syllables of the names of its founders, Thomas Meloy and Joseph Parks. Since 1995 it has been a subsidiary of Raytheon Corporation, of Bedford, Massachusetts. Previously it had been part of Westinghouse Air Brake Company (WABCO), and E-Systems. Since the early 1950s its headquarters has been at 7700 Arlington Blvd.(Route 50), Falls Church, Virginia.

In 1970, the company American Standard acquired WABCO in a hostile takeover. Because WABCO was the true owner of the company, Melpar was also acquired via the takeover. Up to 1970, Melpar employed very high-technology workers and had more than 7,000 employees world-wide on the payroll. They were involved in the Apollo program and constructed the AirStream trailer quarantine quarters for returning astronauts. Melpar was also involved in research into the field of LASERs which was a new technology at the time. They were involved in studies predicting the probability of life on Mars. They were deeply involved in the secretive electronic warfare systems of USAF Wildweasel fighters in Vietnam. Alas, a down-turn in the defense industry and a decline of aerospace business in 1970 had a negative impact on Melpar's viability. This, combined with the hostile takeover and subsequent raiding of Melpar's assets by the new owners reduced employment numbers to less than 700 at the time. Melpar was then sold-off to Vought Industries and continually traded-off until it became a division of Raytheon.

As with many budding technology firms created by brilliant, driven personalities, Melpar fell prey to the changes of the time and met a usual and unfortunate demise. At one time in its history it was one of the prized engineering firms in the Washington, DC, area sometimes referred to as the graduate school of industry.

[edit] Historical Details

At the conclusion of World War II, the founders of Melpar Inc (Thomas Meloy and Joseph Parks), at the suggestion of the Navy, moved from New York City to Washington to obtain Government contracts. In late 1945 Joe Parks accidentally killed himself in a hunting accident; nevertheless Tom Meloy continued to foster the idea of developing Melpar as an engineering and production company doing business with the Armed Forces. He began by acquiring the Carl Miller Engineering Company, a small firm that designed and produced electro-mechanical products. Soon the new company took over a problem contract for airborne radar systems, and thereafter business expanded rapidly. Over the next few years Melpar moved to Alexandria, Va., added a second plant in Cambridge, MA and a third plant in Alexandria VA. Within 15 years the company grew to more than 6,000 employees who worked on hundreds of Government contracts and occupied ten facilities (more than a million square feet) throughout Northern Virginia.

Melpar’s role was uniquely suited to the post-war period characterized by events such as the Berlin Airlift, the detonation of an atomic bomb by the Soviet Union, the formation of NATO, and the outbreak of the Korean War. And in addition to military applications, technology began to play an important role in the non-military arena. This demand let to many emerging areas of scientific inquiry. The Government had a large pool of technical talent in its laboratories and assumed an expanded role, funding programs and research of vital interest to the country.

Against this backdrop Melpar emerged as a company well suited to help the Government and the nation address its daunting challenges. Melpar wanted first and foremost to be a Government contractor and embraced rather than shunned Government work, unlike most other companies. In 1951 Westinghouse Air Brake (a prestigious old-line railway-equipment producer) purchased the company, and gave it a free hand to undertake government contracts involving engineering development, production and scientific exploration. By today’s standards profits expected and realized on Government contracts were low (1-2% of sales), and were reinvested in research. There was little pressure to focus on core specialties so the company was able to respond to a broad array of needs from various Federal and Defense agencies.

In 1952 Melpar decided to build a picturesque, modern plant 10 miles from downtown DC on a 44-acre wooded tract near Seven Corners on US Route 50 in Virginia. At that time the area was sparsely inhabited; this was more than ten years before the I-495 Beltway was constructed. The new building, surrounded by fields in a campus-like setting 400 feet back from the road, had a pond, willow trees, brick facade, and parking tucked away inconspicuously behind the plant. It was in vivid contrast to the dingy buildings and warehouses typically associated with government contractors at that time, and immediately became a development model to be followed in harmonizing industrial design with residential surroundings. To accommodate this building plan, Fairfax County revamped its zoning laws and welcomed the clean, non-polluting company to help relieve the tax burden on property owners. Melpar became an employer of choice for employees desiring a lifestyle permitting them to work near their homes. In development advertising the state of Virginia touted Melpar as a model.

Attracting outstanding talent depends upon having work that is considered the most fun, the most exciting, the most technically challenging and rewarding. In the 1990’s the development of the Internet with its emphasis on computer science, information systems, and software most excited imaginations and intensified the pace of technology. During the 1970’s and 1980’s a similar enthusiasm permeated the telecommunications and biotechnology sectors. However, during the 1950’s and 1960’s the most exciting, technically challenging place to advance the frontiers of knowledge was the fledgling aerospace and electronics industry. That period had many of the same characteristics as today: new firms started by entrepreneurs with promising ideas, financed on a shoestring, and people readily working long hours challenged by the difficulty and excitement of the work. A unique feature of this period however was that the Government, not the commercial marketplace, was the prime source of funding and sponsor of the new technologies.

Melpar fit perfectly into a role of helping the Government take on new exciting challenges. Its location in Washington near its customers was ideal. It wasn’t the only company in the area to thrive; other government contractors such as Atlantic Research, Vitro Laboratories, Page Communications Engineers, Hazleton Laboratories, COMSAT and the Applied Physics Laboratory also played important roles. However, Melpar was the biggest company and thus was able to attract a wide variety of talent and experts from the best universities all over the country. A sample of 1963 job openings included astronomers, astrophysicists, microbiologists, entomologists, geophysicists and gas chromatagraphers. There was a constant migration of top researchers between Melpar and Government laboratories and, in effect, the company filled a void due to the lack of a preeminent technical university in the area. It played an important role on the Washington technology scene by leading technical societies, chairing symposia, and hosting numerous high-level meetings and exchange visits with top Government officials and international dignitaries.

Another contributor to the company’s success was linking production facilities with its scientific and engineering capabilities. Melpar won large contracts for B-58 aircraft electronics and the guidance package for the Minuteman I, requiring a buildup of manufacturing plants and associated work force for the first time in the Washington area. These facilities also enabled scientists to test their laboratory research with prototype hardware. By 1960 the company had assembled a wide range of products such as missile equipment, flight simulators, radar beacons, fuses, data processing equipment, communications, antennas, electronic countermeasure and reconnaissance systems. The combination of a location near customers with many requirements, the ability to attract the needed talent, excellent facilities to carry out the work, and appropriate company management motivation provided the ingredients for Melpar to thrive and prosper.

Managing the manufacturing programs presented significant challenges. Since Washington did not have a workforce of electronic technicians Melpar had to quickly build and train one. The Minuteman production line required 1,800 people and as many as 130 were hired in a single day. Technology schools such as the Capitol Radio Engineering Institute (now Capitol College) rapidly expanded to help train designers and draftsmen to build products for space and missile programs with reliability levels never previously approached. Universities conducted technical courses (e.g. Principles of Transistors) in Melpar facilities for hundreds of employees participating on their own time, in programs praised by the Secretary of Education as a model for the future. The company instituted then-unheard-of tuition reimbursement policies with special incentives for high grades in technical courses. Positions for minorities and females opened at unprecedented levels and provided lifetime opportunities for many.

During this time the company also pioneered manufacturing technology that supported new state-of-the-art developments. In contrast with today when a broad spectrum of off-the-shelf technology is readily available, manufacturing had to become engineering’s handmaiden, ready to translate ideas quickly into producible reality. Intense development occurred in technologies such as layout and fabrication of miniature circuits, production of multilayer circuit cards, and use of thin-film devices and plastic components. Processes such as welding, plating, soldering and automatic component insertion were constantly studied and made more reliable, faster and less costly. Since Government manufacturing specifications and standards did not yet exist, Melpar’s manufacturing engineers often found themselves writing process documents that eventually became Government standards.

When looked at from the 2006 perspective, the diversity of research in physical and life sciences undertaken is astonishing. One project begun in the late 1950’s (foreshadowing artificial intelligence) linked biology and the design of electrical devices – computer programs that emulated artificial nerve cells and simulated functions such as learning ability and initiative. The intent was to construct a practical thinking machine, similar to a human nervous system that learned pattern recognition and avoided mistakes (e.g. programming a mobile robot on the moon to avoid a precipice). Studies on the nature of speech led to more efficient use of the radio spectrum through bandwidth compression, and improved long-distance and coded communications. Related studies focused on elimination of speech deficiencies and development of a phonetic typewriter. In medical research Melpar developed synthetic tissues compatible with what later became the Jarvik artificial heart, and produced an electronic heart monitor (the Cardiac Sentry) which detected out-of-norm variations, maintained hospital records and administered prescribed treatments. The company was an early pioneer in plasma physics and developed materials for communicating with manned space vehicles reentering the atmosphere. Using solar energy, desalinization experiments were conducted to make saline and brackish water drinkable. Detection systems to measure highway curves, motions and vibrations were developed so that future mass transit systems would be fast, comfortable and safe.

Melpar researchers assisted the Government in many other fields as well. They performed studies in cell biology, food chemistry, composite materials (light weight, high temperature), solar energy, meteorology, virology and immunology (cancer research), air and water pollution, air traffic control, global navigation (constructed a prototype map of the Global Positioning System), and underwater acoustics and optics. They studied methane detection in mines and conversion of coal to acetylene as a new source of energy. In the early 1950s they installed an antenna atop the Empire State Building to evaluate the feasibility of UHF TV broadcasting in dense urban environments. Offshoot products from laboratory technology included resins, varnishes, rigid foams, non-smudge ink, adhesives, photoelectric readers and frequency-standard instrumentation. Synthetic diamonds and emeralds were produced to test hardness of space-age materials. While most of Melpar’s efforts were technical in nature, some involved the social sciences. Examples include creation of a stock index of Standard and Poor 500 companies for Business Week, and operation of a Job Corps center.

In addition to these research programs Melpar continued its mainstream focus on military and space applications such as radar, communications, and electronic counter-measure systems as well as airborne and ground intelligence systems. Devices to detect lethal chemical and biological agents were developed. The company participated in early space programs, both unmanned (Vanguard and Explorer) and manned (Mercury and Apollo), providing antennas and semidried food for lunar missions. A quarantine facility based on an Airstream™ trailer was produced to insure the astronauts had not brought any contamination from the moon; one of the three constructed is in the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy air and space museum near Dulles airport.

The company was also one of the world’s foremost manufacturers of flight simulators. More than a dozen different systems (including many for the Air Force’s century-series fighters, and helicopter systems for the Navy) were deployed at bases throughout the world. These simulators became progressively more complex and enabled more realistic and demanding training, proving their value by reducing accident rates and thereby saving pilots’ lives.

Inevitably, however, circumstances changed. In the mid-1960s Melpar’s research, engineering and production efforts began a period of decline. Many factors that initially contributed to the company’s success began to change. Perhaps most important, the Government’s budget priorities changed. Emphasis shifted to solving the nation’s social problems, best exemplified by President Lyndon Johnson’s initiatives in the “War on Poverty”. The space program had no clear follow-on mission after landing a man on the moon. The military’s budget was heavily biased toward providing the necessary manpower and armament to fight the war in Vietnam. None of these changes dovetailed with the company’s on-going research programs.

Other factors contributed to the business decline. The Government didn’t award anticipated follow-on manufacturing contracts so mass layoffs of production workers followed. Melpar’s many research programs were too diverse, too unprofitable, and had uncertain business prospects. As scientific knowledge proliferated, competitors emerged to take the lead in specialized areas. Without government funding, no company had the internal resources to sustain a wide variety of research.

Unfavorable publicity was another debilitating influence. In 1963 Bobby Baker was Secretary for the Majority Democratic caucus in the US Senate, and closely linked to Lyndon Johnson - Baker held perhaps the most powerful non-elected position in Congress. A Melpar vending-machine contractor filed a lawsuit against Baker, accusing him of influence-peddling to switch the contract to a competitor with which Baker had financial ties. Within a few days Baker resigned his position, hoping the issue would quietly die. It didn’t, and for almost two years there were daily front-page headlines and Congressional investigations into Baker’s many questionable business deals and relationships. The company’s top management was called to testify before the Senate Rules committee, although ultimately the Melpar incident was overshadowed by many other allegations and settled out of court. Even so the situation was demoralizing to employees and damaged the company’s ability to win new Government contracts. Changes in management soon followed.

Considering all these developments it was inevitable that employees would begin to leave Melpar, start new companies (usually in the Washington area), and take business with them. As a result, over the next 20 to 30 years more than a dozen spin-offs would generate millions of dollars in annual sales and provide employment for thousands in the Washington area. One employee started a communications company in Florida that ultimately emerged as the Harris Corporation, in 2006 a company with $3.5B in sales. A data communications manufacturer in Boston, Codex, was eventually sold to Motorola for $80 million.

While Melpar never regained its former stature and its name is no longer used, its direct descendent occupies the same facility at 7700 Arlington Boulevard in Falls Church VA and has about 1,500 employees. It has however gone through several changes in name and ownership while remaining a supplier of intelligence systems and support services to various Government and military entities. The American Standard Company, a plumbing-supply manufacturer with little interest in Government business, bought the Westinghouse Air Brake Company in 1969 during one of the periodic cycles of "merger mania" and immediately began to sell off assets. Business and employment at Melpar dwindled rapidly and LTV Electrosystems purchased the company in 1970. LTV sold what was then Melpar Division of LTVE (by then only 350-400 employees) to the recently formed E-Systems in 1972, and the company became Melpar Division of E-Systems. Following a period of rapid growth, it regained approximately its current size. In 1995 Raytheon Inc bought E-Systems during the defense-industry consolidation, and the facility is now the Falls Church operation of Raytheon’s Intelligence and Information Systems business. Since the late 1960s the facility has maintained a low public profile while performing on various (usually classified) Government contracts, most notably production and support of sensors and ground systems for manned and unmanned reconnaissance aircraft. Additionally the facility manages large-scale information systems for civil agencies, and continues to operate a full-service fabrication and test capability for electronic products.

[edit] References

This article is an edited version of an unpublished work titled "Melpar’s Role in the Development of Washington’s Technology Industry" by John M. Monahan, amateur historian and now-retired former E-Systems Melpar employee. Editing and contribution to Wikipedia by Martt Harding, current Raytheon IIS employee.