As the New Year begins, there are plenty of things happening with West Orange County, and nearby, companies. In this biweekly series, we present updates on businesses of interest to West Orange County people. These companies did not slow down during the holidays. Read about new developments at the Boeing C-17 production line, Boeing satellite business, Clean Energy Fuels Corp., Long Beach Transit, EasyMedOnLine, and Idearc Media.
The Boeing Company
With major operations in Seal Beach, Long Beach, El Segundo, Huntington Beach, and Anaheim, The Boeing Company is probably the largest employer in the area. As such, there is almost always something newsworthy happening at Boeing.
Boeing has been looking for international orders to extend the life of its C-17 production line which employs about 5,000 people at the company’s Long Beach Assembly plant. One source for such orders will most likely be the United Arab Emirates. According to published reports, the UAE is looking to buy 4 of the heavy airlifters plus a logistics support contract which could be worth as much as $500 million. This portion of the deal was recently submitted to congress via a foreign military sale notification. We are waiting for the company to give official announcement regarding several pending foreign sales, including the 4 aircraft UAE contract, 10 planes to India, two more airlifters to Qatar, and potential sales to Saudi Arabia.
Meanwhile, last week Boeing’s satellite building team in El Segundo announced they have received the first on-orbit signals from a recently launched spacecraft. The signals, from satellite DIRECTV 12, were received nine hours after the December 28 launch, indicating the satellite is healthy and operating normally. DIRECTV 12 is a Boeing 702 commercial satellite that will provide consumer television programming to millions of U.S. households.
"Last week’s launch marks the 10th satellite Boeing has built and launched for DIRECTV, as well as the 22nd Boeing 702 satellite to fly in space," said Craig Cooning, Boeing vice president and general manager of Space and Intelligence Systems. "We are pleased that DIRECTV 12 is performing as planned and will continue to support the satellite through on-orbit testing in the coming months. From design and integration to launch and signal acquisition, our team has ensured that DIRECTV's new 702 will help them continue to deliver high-definition (HD) digital programming while maintaining excellent quality service."
Clean Energy Fuels Corp.
This Seal Beach based company continues its strategy of developing a national fueling infrastructure to support natural gas as a vehicle fuel. They recently announced that AT&T has awarded to BAF Technologies, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (Nasdaq: CLNE), an order to convert 463 Ford E-250 vans to run on compressed natural gas (CNG) to be fulfilled during the second quarter of 2010. The new order is in addition to a 463-unit order from AT&T for vehicles to be delivered during the first quarter of 2010. Additionally, although no formal order has been made, AT&T has requested that BAF procure on AT&T’s behalf CNG cylinders for 463 additional conversions to be completed in the third quarter of 2010.
Also, Texas has awarded a 10-year contract to Clean Energy to design, build, and maintain a new public access CNG fueling station located adjacent to Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. The facility will operate 24/7 to support growing fleets of off-airport parking shuttle fleets operated by The Parking Spot and Airport Fast-Park; on-airport courtesy shuttle vehicles deployed by Ampco System Parking; taxicabs that serve the airport; and private CNG fleet vehicles in the area. Construction of the station, located on airport-adjacent Spirit of Texas Drive, is scheduled to begin in February 2010.
Long Beach Transit
Speaking of alternative fuels, it was recently announced that Long Beach Transit (LBT), has reached 10 million miles in revenue service with their fleet of 40’ gasoline hybrid-electric buses. The gasoline hybrid systems, produced by San Diego based ISE Corporation, are used in the majority of LBT's bus fleet.
"Long Beach Transit was one of the first transit agencies to deploy ISE's gasoline hybrid-electric technology. We are proud that LBT chose to be an early adopter of our technology. Their participation has helped further our growth and innovation while providing strong proof of the reliability and performance of our energy systems for hybrid vehicles," said Rick Sander, CEO and President of ISE Corporation.
EasyMedOnLine
This Seal Beach based, family-owned, online provider of power wheel chairs, scooters and other assistive mobility products, recently announced a new technological advance to their line of power wheel chairs and power scooters. Starting in mid- 2010 EasyMedOnLine will offer the MobilityAlert TM capability on select power wheel chairs and scooters.
Ryan C. Lawton, President of EasyMedOnLine, explained, “Our goal is to further improve the user functionality, capability and reliability of assistive mobility products that are so important to the millions of Americans depending on them. The MobilityAlert TM option is a unique, low-cost, proven technological improvement combining RemoteDiagnosticsTM capability, MyHealthTM capability and a ContactNowTM wireless point-of-contact capability designed to enhance and improve the operation, maintenance and reliability of power wheel chairs and scooters using secure, non-intrusive networking technology."
The system includes automatic background collection of chair electrical-mechanical hardware status, chair historical and current GPS positioning information and chair performance data. This chair data is remotely monitored and analyzed by EasyMedOnLine for normal and abnormal operating conditions. The chair user - or a caregiver or a family member - is then kept informed of their chair’s condition.
The MobilityAlertTM option also provides MyHealthTM capability that offers real time user health monitoring and recording while the chair is in use. Health monitoring parameters can be tailored for specific health conditions of the chair user. Recorded data can be provided to medical care providers as part of ongoing health monitoring. In the event of a user non-responsive condition or emergency situation - heart attack for example – the chair, employing its ContactNowTM capability can automatically notify a caregiver, a family member or emergency services.
Idearc Media LLC
The Los Alamitos operation of this publisher of Verizon Yellow Pages will eliminate about half of their staff at the 3131 Katella Ave facility. The previously announced job eliminations will be phased in during 2010 and will be complete by year end. There are about 251 staffers at the Los Al site and of those, about 125 will lose their jobs due to outsourcing to India.
The Verizon spinoff, which is in bankruptcy, will ship the publishing production and design jobs to India to save money.
According to Andy Shane, company spokesperson, “This outsourcing is part of an overall company initiative to become a more efficient company. The facility itself will remain open; we will continue to do business in Los Al . The vendor, TaTa Consultancy Services is an IT services, business solutions and outsourcing organization. It’s part of Tata Group, one of India’s largest industrial conglomerates and most respected brands. TaTa already handles some Account Management activities.”
This article is part of a regular biweekly survey of significant business and job developments of interest to West Orange County communities. This biweekly series appears every other Monday, alternating with our biweekly Orange County residential real estate Updates.
