Raytheon Closes Down Goleta Plant; Lays Off 27

Santa Barbara Daily Sound
By Colby Frazier
Daily Sound Staff Writer

Raytheon, one of Santa Barbara County’s largest employers, gave notice to Third District Supervisor Brooks Firestone that it plans to lay off 27 of its employees who work in the Santa Barbara Remote Sensing unit.

Ron Colman, a spokesman for Raytheon said the cuts are unfortunate but have been in the works since its Oct. 5, 2006 announcement that it planned to consolidate the sensing unit with its Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems located in El Segundo.

“It just made sense to locate all of our space business work in one place,” Colman said. “It’s an unfortunate decision for the people in Goleta and Santa Barbara areas but business wise it made sense to locate everybody under one roof.”

The defense and aerospace systems provider, which has been a rock for the local economy for several decades, will continue to operate its Electronic Warfare site as well as its Vision Systems site in Goleta.

Colman said Raytheon employs about 1,800 people locally and the three sectors of its local business nets $500 million annually.

These are the kind of numbers that Firestone laments losing, even if it is only a portion of the business.

“Raytheon is one of the most important employers in the county,” Firestone said. “I am sorry to see that they are closing a division.”

Colman said the company, which according to its website wracked in $20.3 billion last year and employed 73,000 people throughout the world, has been whittling down the number of employees at the sensing unit for nearly a year.

He said the number of employees working at the facility right now is 125 and that the company anticipates being completely consolidated with the operation in El Segundo by early next year.Raytheon is required by the “Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act” to notify the county before it intends to make any sweeping lay offs.

According to a statement issued last year when the company announced its plans to consolidate, all of the affected employees “will be given the opportunity to apply for open positions at other Raytheon facilities.”

But for the most recent string of layoffs, little hope appears to exist.

“None of the affected employees are represented by a union and none have bumping rights,” said Andrea Gibbore, director of human resources in the letter sent to Firestone. “Certain employees may be offered the opportunity to transfer to another area. However, at present, the company does not know which employees may be offered this option.”

In the letter Gibbore said the second wave of lay offs is expected to occur on June 30.

The 27 people losing their jobs fill 20 different job titles. Topping the list position-by-position are three production specialist seniors, three senior technical support engineers, two senior systems engineers II, two principal software engineers and two principal mechanical engineers.