Dozens of bands and solo musicians boycotted Austin, Texas’ South by Southwest (SXSW) festival this week in protest against the Department of Defense’s support of Israel’s war in Gaza. Among SXSW’s sponsors this year are the U.S. Army and Arlington County-based aerospace and defense contractor RTX, which makes weapons and other equipment used by Israel’s military.
According to The Hill, as of Wednesday, 105 music acts and five music labels have dropped out of the nine-day festival, which concludes Saturday. In February, the Austin For Palestine Coalition called for music artists and participants in speakers’ panels to boycott SXSW due to the festival’s financial backing by the U.S. Army, RTX and its subsidiaries, and other defense contractors. Also mentioned by the coalition was Falls Church-based BAE Systems Inc., which was scheduled as an exhibitor at a startup event connected to SXSW, although a BAE spokesperson sent a statement to The Hill that it did not plan to participate in the festival.
Army spokesperson Lt. Col. Lindsey Elder said in a statement to Virginia Business on Thursday that the military branch is “proud to be a sponsor of SXSW, and to have the opportunity to showcase America’s Army. SXSW presents a unique opportunity for the Army to meet technology innovators and leaders, explore new ideas and insights, and create dynamic industry partnerships as we modernize for the future. By engaging with innovators and entrepreneurs, we are able to invest strategically in state-of-the-art systems, allowing us to evolve and adapt to new threats and challenges.”
Previously known as Raytheon Technologies, RTX has three business units: Aerospace and defense technology supplier Collins Aerospace, headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina; aerospace manufacturer Pratt & Whitney, headquartered in East Hartford, Connecticut; and Arlington-based subsidiary Raytheon, which includes intelligence, space, missiles and defense business segments.
The Austin for Palestine Coalition issued an open letter Feb. 21 demanding that SXSW organizers “disinvite Raytheon (RTX), its subsidiary Collins Aerospace, and BAE Systems to the conference and festivals in the city of Austin. Raytheon, Collins Aerospace and BAE Systems have direct ties to the arming of Israel, supporting their violent oppression of the Palestinian people. Raytheon manufactures missiles, bombs and other weapon systems for the Israeli military to use against Palestinians.”
SXSW organizers said in posts on X this week that “we fully respect the decision these artists made to exercise their right to free speech,” while adding, “The Army’s sponsorship is part of our commitment to bring forward ideas that shape our world. In regard to Collins Aerospace, they participated this year as a sponsor of two SXSW Pitch categories, giving entrepreneurs visibility and funding for potentially game-changing work.”
RTX and BAE Systems did not respond immediately to requests for comment Thursday from Virginia Business.
As of late February, Israel’s war in Gaza has claimed more than 30,000 Palestinian lives, including numerous civilians, and more than 70,000 people have been wounded in the territory, according to health officials in the Gaza Strip. The war in Gaza followed Hamas’ attack on Israeli civilians near Gaza’s border on Oct. 7, 2023, which claimed about 1,200 lives, as well as the kidnapping of about 200 people, according to Israel authorities.
Also, the United Nations and worldwide aid organizations have characterized the situation in Gaza as a humanitarian catastrophe, as Israeli troops have frequently not allowed food and other aid to reach people in the territory. Last month, top U.N. officials said that at least a quarter of Gaza’s population, or 576,000 people, are “one step away from famine” without more aid, according to the Associated Press.
President Joe Biden and other U.S. politicians have received heavy criticism for their support of Israel’s military as the death toll grows in Gaza, and the federal government has increased financial and military aid to Israel in a budget passed by the U.S. Senate and now under consideration in the U.S. House of Representatives.
In Biden’s State of the Union speech, he called for a ceasefire in Gaza and authorized the construction of a temporary port to allow delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza residents, while still funding weapons for Israel. Also, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, a leading U.S. Democratic ally of Israel, said in a speech Thursday that Israel needs to hold a new election and that the Middle East nation risks becoming a “pariah” under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has authorized Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
Raytheon, a subsidiary of Arlington County-based RTX, received a $154 million contract to deliver independent viewer systems to the U.S. Army, the Fortune 500 aerospace and defense contractor announced Wednesday.
Under the contract, Raytheon, which, like its parent company, is also based in Arlington, will deliver Commander’s Independent Viewer (CIV) systems for the Army’s Bradley Fighting Vehicles. CIV is an electro-optical/infrared sight system that uses forward-looking infrared cameras and sensors to provide the infantry vehicle with 360-degree battlefield oversight and targeting capabilities.
“The CIV is a package of multiple systems all working together to increase the survivability and battlefield performance of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle,” Bryan Rosselli, president of Raytheon’s Advanced Products and Solutions business group, said in a statement. “These capabilities — early threat detection, 360-degree battlefield view and all-weather performance — increase a vehicle commander’s ability to locate, identify and defeat stationary and moving targets in any condition.”
Raytheon will produce the units in McKinney, Texas. The first delivery is expected June 2026.
Earlier this month, Raytheon announced it had received a $344.6 million U.S. Air Force contract modification to produce StormBreaker smart weapons.
RTX has more than 185,000 employees globally and had $68.9 billion in sales in 2023. The company rebranded from Raytheon Technologies to RTX in June 2023 and has three business units: Collins Aerospace, Pratt & Whitney and Raytheon.
Raytheon, a subsidiary of Arlington County-based aerospace and defense contractor RTX, won a $344.6 million U.S. Air Force contract modification, the Department of Defense announced Friday.
Raytheon will produce more than 1,500 StormBreaker smart weapons, which are air-to-surface, network-enabled weapons that can engage moving targets in all weather conditions, according to a RTX news release.
Work on the modification to a previously awarded contract will be performed in Tucson, Arizona, and has an expected completion of Aug. 30, 2028. The contract involves foreign military sales to Norway, Germany, Italy and Finland.
StormBreaker, a gliding precision bomb, is fielded on the F-15E Strike Eagle and the F/A-18E/F SuperHornet fighter aircraft, and testing is underway on all F-35 variants. In 2023, StormBreaker completed 28 test drops, according to a news release.
“With this contract, we’ll continue to evolve StormBreaker’s production to meet the needs of servicemembers for years to come,” Paul Ferraro, Raytheon’s president of air power, said in a statement.
RTX has more than 180,000 employees globally and reported $67 billion in net sales in 2022. The company rebranded from Raytheon Technologies to RTX in June 2023 and has three business units: Collins Aerospace, Pratt & Whitney and Raytheon.
Arlington-based defense giant RTX’s Pratt & Whitney aerospace division in Connecticut will provide sustainment and other support services for propulsion systems on the F-35 fighter jet under a $701 million modification to a Navy contract.
Pratt & Whitney will provide program management, propulsion integration, engineering, management services, software sustainment, security management and spare parts for the program, the Pentagon said Wednesday. The contract also calls for continued work, including data updates, training and depot level maintenance and repair on F-35 propulsion systems at production sites and operational locations across the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, as well as for foreign military customers. Work is expected to be completed in May 2024.
The F-35 is the military’s next generation fighter and includes three variations. The F-35A is a conventional takeoff and landing variant for the Air Force; the F-35B is the Marine Corps’ short takeoff/vertical landing variant, and the F-35C is the Navy’s aircraft carrier variant. The single-engine stealth fighter will replace the Air Force’s A-10 and F-16, the Navy’s F/A-18 and the Marines’ AV-8B Harrier jets, as well as the service’s F/A-18s.
The top five most-read daily news stories on VirginiaBusiness.com from Oct. 14 to Nov. 15 included news of the Spotsylvania County Kalahari Resort’s groundbreaking. It’s slated to open in 2026.
U.S. Sen. Mark Warner said that the site selection — choosing Greenbelt, Maryland, over Springfield — was “corrupt,” and he had expected better from the Biden administration. (Nov. 9)
The Fortune 500 contractor has agreed to sell its cybersecurity, intelligence and services business segment for about $1.3 billion and announced a $10 billion stock buyback program. (Oct. 24)
RTX has agreed to sell its cybersecurity, intelligence and services business segment for about $1.3 billion and announced a $10 billion stock buyback program Tuesday as it seeks to recover from a manufacturing quality issue in a jetliner engine that has plagued the Arlington County-based Fortune 500 defense and aerospace contractor since the summer.
RTX, which announced its rebranding from Raytheon Technologies Corp. in June, revealed its plans in its third quarter 2023 results, which also included news of a nearly $1 billion loss in its East Hartford, Connecticut-based Pratt & Whitney aerospace division. The buyer for the cybersecurity, intelligence and services business, part of its Raytheon division, was not disclosed. The sale is subject to regulatory approval.
“We regularly review our portfolio to ensure our business is best positioned to deliver for our customers, stakeholders and employees,” company spokesperson Chris Johnson told Virginia Business. “Based on that review, we decided to divest our cybersecurity, intelligence and services business. We believe this gives the business greater autonomy to deliver on customer missions and allows it to serve as a platform for innovation well into the future.”
For the quarter, RTX reported a loss of $985 million, the result of a powder metal defect that could cause engine parts to crack and will require the grounding of 350 jets per year through 2026, Reuters reported in September. RTX lost about $5.4 billion in sales for the third quarter.
In July, when RTX disclosed the defect, officials said they expected to complete repairs in 60 days; Reuters’ September report shows a more prolonged and serious process, with as many as 650 jets grounded in the first half of 2024.
“We have made significant progress on our assessment of the Pratt & Whitney powder metal manufacturing matter and expect the financial impact to be in line with the previously disclosed charge,” RTX Chairman and CEO Greg Hayes said in a statement. “We are now focused on executing on our fleet management plans and are working relentlessly to mitigate further disruption to our customers. We do not expect any significant future incremental impact as a result of these fleet management plans.”
The company reported third quarter sales of $13.5 billion, down 21% from the previous year, which it attributed to the powder metal issue. Its adjusted sales of $19 billion for the quarter reflected a 12% increase from the prior year and the company has a $190 billion backlog, including $115 billion in commercial and $75 billion in defense work.
“The historic demand across our commercial aerospace and defense businesses drove 12% organic sales growth during the third quarter and led to another record backlog of $190 billion,” Hayes said.
The company’s $10 billion share buyback program will take advantage of steep declines in RTX share prices this year. RTX shares hit a high of $104 on April 18, with a steep decline to $85.17 on July 27 following news of the powder issue before declining through September and bottoming out at $69.38 on Oct. 5. With news of the buyback, RTX’s stocks increased to $77.99 by late Tuesday afternoon.
In addition, Gov. Glenn Youngkin on Tuesday announced RTX is donating $1 million to New York-based NAF, a national nonprofit organization that links businesses and schools to help high school students to prepare for college and work, to help with STEM education in support of the governor’s $100 million laboratory school initiative.
“Private sector leadership is critical to bringing innovation to Virginia public schools, and I am grateful for RTX’s donation to NAF to support STEM in Virginia schools,” Youngkin said in a statement. “Our lab school initiative is focused on creating pathways to the most in demand careers, technical training, and STEM exposure for Virginia students. The Virginia Department of Education will work closely with NAF on a plan to support lab school and STEM development in Virginia public schools.”
The state approved its first lab school, a partnership between Virginia Commonwealth University and Richmond’s CodeRVA Regional High School in July. That program, called VCU x CodeRVA Lab School, will train teachers and its students will focus on computer science. An additional six lab school application have so far been submitted, Youngkin’s office said in a news release Tuesday, and many or those applications are using STEM learning models to meet workforce needs in the state.
RTX has spent more than $17.6 million at Virginia educational institutions through a program that pays for employees to earn college degrees and certifications, resulting in more than 700 degrees. More than 200 RTX employees are currently attending Virginia-based programs through the benefit.
“The future of aerospace and defense innovation will be defined by the young people in Virginia schools and beyond,” Hayes said. “Our partnership with the state and NAF will deliver career-themed curriculum through academies of engineering and related business disciplines in public high schools right here in the commonwealth.”
Total compensation for S&P 500 CEOs nationwide last year marked its smallest year-over-year increase since 2015, with pay increasing 0.9% from 2021.
Here in Virginia, CEOs faced even greater headwinds — their total pay increased just 0.3% from 2021 to 2022, down from a 4.9% increase between 2020 and 2021. The slowdown was a result of reduced equity awards and smaller bonuses, which showed the largest decline of all components of CEO pay, dropping by 6% in Virginia.
CEO compensation data was gleaned from an annual study conducted by Equilar, a California-based corporate leadership data firm. To determine executive pay, Equilar tallies salary, bonus, perks, stock awards, stock option awards, long-term awards and other compensation. Altogether, Equilar examined CEO compensation data for 52 Virginia-based public companies with annual revenues of $1 billion or more. (See data for the top 40 highest-paid Virginia CEOs of publicly traded companies.)
Virginia’s top-compensated CEO in 2022 was Richard D. Fairbank of McLean-based Capital One Financial. He outearned his peers despite receiving a base salary of $0, an arrangement that has been in place since 1997. His total 2022 compensation totaled $27.6 million, a 35% increase from 2021, when he earned $20.46 million. Like most other Virginia CEOs in the study, Fairbank saw his bonus decrease between 2021 and 2022, in his case from $4.55 million to $4.25 million. The largest increase in his total compensation came from equity awards of $23.25 million — $5 million more than Virginia’s second-highest compensated CEO and up from the $15.82 million he received in 2021.
Fairbank’s boosted equity compensation reflects Capital One’s excellent performance in 2022, when the Fortune 500 credit card giant’s total net revenue increased 13% to $34.3 billion. That was an increase almost twice as large as Capital One saw between 2020 and 2021, when its net revenue increased 7%, from $28.5 billion to $30.4 billion.
Capital One declined comment for this story. Fairbank, who also serves as Capital One’s chairman and president, told investors in April that the company “posted strong top-line growth throughout 2022,” a result of transformations in the bank holding company’s technology and a focus on driving “resilient growth.”
In July, Capital One announced net income of $1.4 billion for the second quarter of 2023, up from $960 million in the year’s first quarter, but trailing the $2 billion in net income it posted in the second quarter of 2022.
Richard D. Fairbank, Capital One Financial’s CEO, had the highest compensation of any chief executive in Virginia in 2022, although his base pay remains $0. Photo courtesy Capital One Financial
Small increases, big paydays
In second place for total compensation among Virginia CEOs of public companies in 2022 was Christopher J. Nassetta, president and CEO of McLean-based Fortune 500 hospitality company Hilton Worldwide Holdings. He received $23.53 million in total compensation, a 1% increase from the $23.29 million he made in 2021. Nassetta was one of the few Virginia CEOs whose bonus compensation rose in that period, bumped up 2% from $3.35 million in 2021 to $3.41 million in 2022. His equity award was also second highest among Virginia CEOs after Fairbank’s, at $18.27 million.
Hilton Worldwide reported $8.77 billion in revenue in 2022, up from $5.79 billion in 2021. The 2021 and 2022 numbers are up from 2020’s pandemic low of $4.31 billion, which represented a massive drop from the $9.45 billion the hotelier pulled in 2019. In August 2020, Nassetta reported that Hilton was averaging around 50% occupancy across all its hotels.
The company is rapidly building back after facing this unprecedented plummet in demand and even being forced to close some properties around the world. It made notable progress in 2022: Hilton opened its 7,000th hotel and hosted almost 2 million guests globally. At the end of 2022, it counted 7,165 properties with 1.13 million rooms, as well as an additional 2,281 properties in its pipeline.
Coming in third place in terms of compensation among Virginia executives is Gregory J. Hayes, chairman and CEO of Arlington-based Fortune 500 multinational aerospace and defense conglomerate RTX, previously Raytheon Technologies until it rebranded in July.
Hayes’ overall compensation was $22.56 million, a 4% increase over his 2021 compensation of $21.79 million. Notably, his bonus sank 22%, from $4.99 million in 2021 to $3.90 million in 2022. RTX brought in revenue of $67.07 billion in 2022, a 4.17% increase from $64.39 billion in 2021. This year, the company announced it was restructuring its businesses, merging four business segments into three: Collins Aerospace, Pratt & Whitney, and Raytheon.
Nationally, leading CEOs’ median pay was $14.8 million in 2022 — a scant 0.9% above 2021, when median pay was $14.5 million. It marked the smallest year-over-year increase since 2015, according to an analysis by Equilar and The Associated Press. The small increase was a major reversal after median pay for top CEOs jumped 17% from 2020 to 2021.
“I think this is mainly because of the market; last year it was not a great market,” says Lei Gao, associate professor for the George Mason University School of Business. “This impacted CEO’s pay because a portion comes from equity.”
Nationally, Sundar Pichai of Silicon Valley-based multinational tech conglomerate Alphabet, parent company of Google, was the highest-paid U.S. CEO identified in the Equilar/AP executive compensation survey. Pichai, who also serves as Google’s CEO, received $225.98 million in 2022. He stands alone among S&P CEOs in earning more than $200 million last year. The only other CEO to earn more than $100 million was Michael Rapino of Beverly Hills-based entertainment company Live Nation Entertainment, who brought home a total of $139.01 million.
While Virginia CEOs are very well- compensated, they make on average less than one-tenth of what these top heavy-hitters rake in.
Equilar Director of Research Courtney Yu notes that because CEO compensation varies by industry, Virginia CEOs are likely to clock in on the lower end of the pay scale.
“About a quarter of the [top-earning] companies in Virginia are in the industrial sector, which is probably due to the region,” he says. “The industrial sector isn’t really a sector that we see on the higher end for compensation.”
Bye-bye, big bonuses
The economic turbulence and attendant uncertainty that characterized 2022 led to some noteworthy changes in CEO pay, especially due to a large drop in bonus pay and reductions in equity awards.
In Virginia’s CEO pay horse race, Gary Bowman of Reston-based Bowman Consulting Group experienced the biggest drop in total compensation, with his pay shooting down 72% year-over-year, from $8.31 million in 2021 to $2.35 million in 2022. His combined bonus and salary went up 4%, so the large drop can be chalked up to a change in equity awards.
The CEO who experienced the biggest boost in compensation was Michael Scott Culbreth of Winchester-based American Woodmark, a kitchen and bath cabinet manufacturer. Culbreth’s total compensation more than doubled between 2021 and 2022, shooting up 103%, from $2.25 million to $4.56 million. The change was due to a 14% bump in salary, and an increase in bonus pay from $1.27 million in 2021 to $1.55 million in 2022.
Bonuses tended to be down across the board in 2022, with only 18 of 52 — or 35% — of top Virginia CEOs seeing their bonus increase instead of decline since 2021. Virginia CEOs’ bonuses fell roughly 6% year-over-year from 2021 to 2022, averaging near $1.8 million in 2021 and closer to $1.6 million in 2022. This overall bonus decline stands in contrast to 2021, when Virginia CEOs’ bonus pay increased on average.
“For this past year, the economy was definitely much more turbulent because of supply chain issues and fears of possible recession, so it was a much tougher year for companies as compared to 2021, when the economy was experiencing a recovery from the pandemic,” says Equilar’s Yu. As a result, he adds, “We did see a drop in bonuses.”
Yu notes that bonuses in 2021 were at “the highest level that we’ve seen in quite some time,” so compensation watchers anticipated a drop. That said, the decline in 2022 was a bigger plummet than the typical up-and-down expected in these numbers, a result that accords with 2022’s inflation and general economic uncertainty.
“Bonuses vary heavily based on economic factors because a lot of the metrics that bonuses are contingent on are short-term, like revenue and things that will be swayed by economic times,” says Yu.
A few Virginia CEOs proved an exception to the rule of reduced bonuses. The Virginia CEO whose bonus grew by the largest amount in 2022 was Raymond Karl McDonnell of Herndon-based education services holding company Strategic Education. His bonus went up 312%, from $283,125 in 2021 to $1.17 million in 2022. Another CEO with a notable increase was Billy Gifford of Henrico County-based Altria Group, the Fortune 500 parent company of tobacco manufacturer Philip Morris USA. Gifford’s bonus jumped 196%, from $2.75 million in 2021 to $8.15 million in 2022.
Pay raise for women CEOs
As in 2021, women heading up publicly traded Fortune 500 Virginia companies in 2022 numbered only three: Phebe Novakovic of Reston-based aerospace and defense contractor General Dynamics; Kathy J. Warden of Falls Church-based aerospace and defense contractor Northrop Grumman; and Nazzic S. Keene of Reston-based federal contractor Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC). They represent a bit over 5% of the CEOs at this level in Virginia.
Novakovic and Warden ranked fourth and fifth respectively for total compensation among all Virginia CEOs. Novakovic’s compensation clocked in at $21.48 million, while Warden posted total compensation of $20.67 million in 2022. Keene ranked 19th on the Virginia CEO pay list in 2022, with her total compensation up 4%, from $8.34 million in 2021 to $8.64 million in 2022. (Keene, who is retiring in October, is being succeeded by former Microsoft executive Toni Townes-Whitley, also formerly president of CGI Federal.)
On a national level, women CEOs’ median pay was greater their male counterparts’ compensation.
“Broadly speaking, we did see an uptick in pay for female CEOs at the median compared to male CEOs,” says Yu. “In our annual CEO study, this is the first time since 2018 that women have made more than men at the median level.”
Growing pay gap
Concerns about the widening wealth gap in the U.S. have shown a spotlight on the ratio between CEO pay and median employee pay in recent years.
At companies included in the Equilar/AP executive compensation study, workers earned a median pay of $77,178 in 2022, a 1.3% increase from $76,160 from 2021. Despite the salary bump, it would still take the median worker a shocking 190 years to earn the amount that an executive making median CEO pay receives in a single year.
In Virginia, the ratio between CEO and employee pay at top companies varied extremely widely. Among companies in the Equilar study, that ratio ranges from 4:1 to 2,411:1, with most companies on the list falling between 50:1 and 300:1.
Freddie Mac (Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp.) showed the lowest disparity in 2022, as in 2021, with median worker pay of $161,130 coming in at 25.5% of CEO Michael DeVito’s compensation, which totaled $631,385. Richmond-based leaf tobacco supplier Universal Corp. had the highest disparity due to its heavy use of seasonal part-time laborers, many from developing countries, who earned a median of $2,004 in 2022. Universal CEO George Freeman made $4.83 million last year.
Some institutional investors have balked at ever-increasing CEO pay, prompting boards to hold votes on the issue. Some experts believe federal rules on CEO compensation may be in order.
“Regulations might help the market to address some of the ethical questions about pay to CEOs,” says Gao. “One issue that academic and the market industry people hate is when heavy cost comes from regulation. But this one, I don’t think there are many costs associated with it. And since it can provide more transparency to the market, it seems to be something we should do and the market can benefit from.”
The political will for such a move may be lacking, but how much the chasm between CEO and worker pay will widen as the years tick by remains an important and much-discussed question.
Shockey is lead executive at the Arlington corporate headquarters of the world’s second largest defense contractor, RTX. Formerly Raytheon Technologies, the company announced a reorganization in June. In February, he became the senior official in Arlington upon the retirement of Roy Azevedo, who was president of Raytheon Intelligence & Space, now consolidated with Raytheon Missiles & Defense under the name Raytheon. The other two RTX business units are defense technology supplier Collins Aerospace and aerospace manufacturer Pratt & Whitney.
A former staffer with the U.S. House of Representatives, where he was staff director of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence among other positions, Shockey joined RTX in 2021 after serving as Boeing’s vice president of global sales and marketing for its defense, space and security business.
In 2022, RTX reported more than $67 billion in sales, and officials estimated growth to hit up to $73 billion in 2023. The company employs more than 180,000 people worldwide. It moved its headquarters to Arlington last year from Massachusetts. In June, RTX’s Raytheon subsidiary landed a $1.15 billion missile contract for the Air Force and Navy.
This year, 24 Virginia companies made the Fortune 500 list of the nation’s 500 largest publicly traded companies in the United States by total revenue.
The commonwealth had three more Fortune 500 companies in 2023 than last year, largely due to aerospace and defense contractors RTX (formerly Raytheon Technologies Corp.) and Boeing Co., which both moved their headquarters to Arlington County from out of state last year. This year, they debuted as Virginia’s second- and third-ranked Fortune 500 companies. Additionally, McLean-based global hotelier Hilton returned to the Fortune 500 this year after a two-year slump caused by the pandemic.
This year, 10 of the commonwealth’s Fortune 500 companies are based in Fairfax County, the Virginia locality with the most Fortune 500 companies. The metro Richmond region, including Hanover, Henrico and Goochland counties, has the second most, with five companies.
Notably, Goochland-based used vehicle retailer CarMax Inc. had the biggest rise in 2023, jumping 50 slots to No. 124. Henrico-based convenience store holding company Arko Corp., which debuted on the Fortune 500 last year, moved up almost 40 slots to No. 460.
The biggest slides were seen from Henrico-based insurance holding company Markel Group Inc., which dropped 63 slots to No. 352, and DXC Technology Co. in Ashburn, which dropped 48 slots to No. 255.
Arlington County-based Raytheon, a business unit of newly rebranded aerospace and defense contractor RTX, will produce Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles for the U.S. Air Force and Navy as well as foreign militaries under a $1.15 billion contract announced by the Pentagon Tuesday.
The contract includes missiles, the AMRAAM telemetry system, spares and other production engineering support. Work will be performed in Tucson, Arizona, and is expected to be complete by Jan. 31, 2027.
About 39% of the contract value includes unclassified sales to Bahrain, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Finland, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine and the United Kingdom.
According to Raytheon, this is the largest AMRAAM missile contract to date and the fifth production lot of the advanced missiles developed under the “form, fit, function refresh” (F3R) initiative, which updates the missile’s hardware and allows for Agile software upgrades.
“We recognize AMRAAM is the most advanced, combat-proven missile, and we owe it to the warfighters to ensure they have the technology they need when they need it,” Paul Ferraro, president of air power for Raytheon, said in a statement. “Be it air-to-air or surface-to-air, AMRAAM continues its proud legacy with greater power and precision than ever before with this contract.”
Under the F3R program, engineers used model-based systems engineering initiatives and other digital technologies to upgrade multiple circuit cards and other hardware in the guidance section of the missile and to re-host legacy software in the AIM-120 D-3 and AIM-120 C-8 AMRAAMs.
News of the contract comes on the heels of Raytheon Technologies’ announcement that it is rebranding as RTX as it consolidates its business units from four to three: aerospace and defense technology supplier Collins Aerospace, headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina; aerospace manufacturer Pratt & Whitney, headquartered in East Hartford, Connecticut; and Raytheon.
RTX employs more than 180,000 people globally and is headquartered in Arlington.
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