United Launch Alliance on Thursday said it will lay off 350 workers in February, just two years after the Boeing-Lockheed Martin partnership made a much-heralded landing in Centennial.
The reduction will be spread across the rocket-design company’s workforce of 4,200, including employees at its headquarters in Centennial, its Waterton Canyon plant in Jefferson County and its operations in Decatur, Ala.; Harlingen, Texas; and San Diego.
Among the factors contributing to the cuts:
• A $50 million reduction in a key U.S. Air Force contract for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program, which uses the Atlas V and Delta IV rockets to put spy satellites into orbit.
• The approaching end of the Delta II rocket program, used primarily for smaller payloads such as Global Positioning System satellites.
• A reduction in the number of scheduled launches, in part because of the economic downturn.
“We have anticipated that we would become a smaller company as we consolidate our product lines and functions,” president and chief executive Michael Glass said in a statement. “We are also facing further reductions as a result of downward pressure on the federal budget, from which we derive the majority of our revenue.”
As more federal cuts become evident, ULA may have to make another round of layoffs in the fourth quarter next year, said company spokeswoman Julie Andrews.
ULA will decide by year’s end which jobs will be cut and where.
“When we were formed, we said it was to create a cost benefit to the government, and the combination created efficiencies and redundancies,” Andrews said.
About 1,800 people work in the two Colorado locations, many of them transplanted from Boeing’s facilities in California.
The company also maintains launch facilities in Cape Canaveral, Fla., and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. It’s unclear how those facilities will be affected.
The joint venture was hailed as a major economic force for Denver’s south metro area, although layoffs were in the cards from the start, said Tom Clark, executive vice president of the Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce. “I was wondering when it was going to happen since we knew when we brought them out here that part of the strategy was to reduce the force,” Clark said. “The longer-term concern is how deep the federal deficit will go. (President-elect Barack) Obama has reiterated his commitment to space.”
David Migoya: 303-954-1506 or dmigoya@denverpost.com
