For the Record – Northern Virginia, May 2013

Two Fairfax County-based financial institutions, Apple Federal Credit Union and Vantria Federal Credit Union, plan to merge in May.  Apple will absorb Vantria, including all of its employees. Apple officials expect no layoffs or branch closings related to the merger. Vantria members automatically will become Apple members and have access to its products and services. Patricia Malatesta, Vantria’s CEO, said the credit union had been hurt by the recent real estate market decline, loan defaults and bankruptcies as well as the increased burden of a changing regulatory environment. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Booz Allen Hamilton received a $315 million contract to provide research and development expertise to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s InnoVision Future Solutions Program (IFSP). IFSP supports groundbreaking scientific research and transitions innovative concepts and capabilities required to solve the intelligence community and Department of Defense’s most complex problems. It also examines emerging scientific capabilities, such as high-performance computing data and surveillance in high-threat environments. Booz Allen is the prime contractor on this award and will lead a team of partners, including 10 small businesses, on this work. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Easterns Automotive opened its new headquarters in Sterling, which will house the company’s corporate offices and a studio to shoot its commercials and serve as its main refurbishing and distribution center. The facility will also serve as home base to the company’s www.DirectCarBuying.com operation. The company formerly had locations in Prince William County and in Howard County, Md. Both of those facilities were closed, and the jobs were moved to Loudoun. (Loudoun Times-Mirror)

Greencore Group, an Ireland-based food manufacturer, announced a $5.75 million expansion to its Stafford County facility, which will create 350 jobs. The key focus of Greencore’s business in the U.S. is food to go for a major convenience store chain as well as a new major foodservice customer. In 2010, Greencore acquired MarketFare Foods, which had locations in Stafford County and Salt Lake City. Greencore USA is headquartered in Danvers, Mass., and employs more than 1,000 people. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

McLean-based ITT Exelis plans to reduce its employee head count by about 6 percent and cut its facility square footage by about 10 percent this year, part of an effort to reshape for a more competitive and cost-conscious environment. David F. Melcher, Exelis’ president and chief executive, said that the 6 percent employee cut — which equals about 1,200 of its 20,000 workers — will be partly achieved by a voluntary early retirement program that 600 employees have accepted. (The Washington Post)

Kaiser Group Holdings Inc., a Delaware holding company, has moved its corporate headquarters from Fairfax to Birmingham, Ala., where the office of one of its subsidiaries, Kaiser Aircraft Industries Inc. is located. The executives located in Fairfax opted to remain in Virginia and left the company at the end of March. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Prince William Hospital has been renamed Novant Health Prince William Medical Center. The Heathcote center, Prince William Hospital’s stand-alone emergency room in Haymarket is changing names, too. It will be called Novant Health Haymarket Medical Center. The change is part of a new branding strategy for North Carolina-based Novant Health, which owns 13 hospitals and more than 100 outpatient medical centers in the Southeast. (InsideNoVa.com)