Kavika..back at you...this just out from Knight Ridder:
(COMTEX) B: Tulsa, Okla.-Based Company Stays Busy Making Generators for
B: Tulsa, Okla.-Based Company Stays Busy Making Generators for U.S. Forces
Oct 11, 2001 (Tulsa World - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News via COMTEX) --
Westwood Corp., a company whose products are vital to military operations, plans
to be busy over the next several years as it works to fill defense contracts.
Several people toured the plant Wednesday and employees were treated to a
hamburger lunch with all the fixings in recognition of the Tulsa-based company's
growth in revenue.
"It's nice to know you've got orders that go through 2007. There aren't too many
people who can say that, and with the conditions in this world, it's real
important," said Ernest McKee, president of Westwood.
The company recently announced that it has landed work for two of its business
divisions.
The contracts were under evaluation prior to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and
had nothing to do with those events, company officials said.
Westwood is a leading provider of marine control and power distribution systems
and portable generators built to military specifications.
The company's products can be found on every ship in the Navy's active surface
fleet and on some ships in allied fleets.
Also, the company's Tactical Quiet Generators provide a dependable, rugged
source of mobile electrical power for field troops of the Army, Air Force and
Navy.
Since Sept. 11, the company's stock price has steadily risen and on Wednesday
closed at a 52-week high of $1.70 per share. That compares to a 52-week low of
nearly 44 cents a share last December.
Westwood is a Nevada corporation with corporate offices located in Tulsa. The
company trades under the symbol WNMP on Nasdaq.
Westwood's business is conducted through its wholly owned subsidiaries, MCII
Electric Co. and NMP Corp., which are both located in Tulsa, and TANO Corp.,
which is in New Orleans.
Westwood employs about 200 people, including 160 in Tulsa and 40 in New Orleans.
Most recently, the company's MCII subsidiary won a contract to provide 30- and
60-kilowatt Tactical Quiet Generators, which supply a mobile source of
electrical power to military troops in the field during combat, training or
peacekeeping operations.
The six-year contract is worth $156 million.
The company will produce 9,000 to 10,000 generators upon the completion of its
contracts, McKee said.
"We can't shoot, move or communicate without tactical power. That's an integral
part of the battlefield," said Col. Mark Jones, project manager of Mobile
Electric Power, which oversees the contracts for the generators.
D.J. Thomsen, a Westwood employee, is pleased with news of the company's
contracts.
Thomsen installs the control boxes in the generators and also helps with final
preparations before the equipment is painted.
NMP Corp., a second subsidiary of Westwood, recently received a $5.3 million
contract to provide power distribution equipment for the Navy.
It takes roughly 300 hours to put together the power system that goes aboard a
destroyer-class ship, McKee said.
He added that a single destroyer contains 34 of the power systems, which control
everything from radar to propulsion to lighting.
Each power system has shock mounts that enable it to withstand greater than 300
times the force of gravity.
To understand the magnitude of that force, McKee noted that a fighter jet flying
the speed of sound reaches 7-G, while a ride at the fair might be 3-G to 4-G.
McKee said an array of Westwood-made products was on the USS Cole when it was
bombed by terrorists last October in Aden, Yemen.
"All of our equipment was on that ship," he said.
By Laurie Winslow
To see more of the Tulsa World, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://
ww.tulsaworld.com.
(c) 2001, Tulsa World, Okla. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
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