General Dynamics Corporation
Type	Public NYSE: GD S&P 500 Component
Industry	Aerospace · Defense
Founded	February 21, 1952
Founder(s)	John Philip Holland
Headquarters	West Falls Church, Virginia, USA
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Phebe Novakovic CEO and Chairman of the Board
Products	Conglomerate
Revenue	$ 31.981 billion (2009) Backlog: $ 65.5 billion
Operating income	$ 3.675 billion (2009)
Net income	$ 2.394 billion (2009)
Total assets	$ 31.077 billion (2009)
Total equity	$ 12.423 billion (2009)
Employees	91,200 (April 2010)
Website	gd.com

General Dynamics Corporation (NYSE: GD) is a United States aerospace and defense company formed by mergers and divestitures. As of 2011, it is the fourth largest defense contractor in the world.[3] It is headquartered in West Falls Church, Fairfax County, Virginia.

 

The company has changed markedly in the post-Cold War era of defense consolidation. It has four main business segments: Marine Systems; Combat Systems; Information Systems and Technology; and Aerospace. Until 1993, when production was sold to Lockheed, General Dynamics' former Fort Worth Division manufactured the Western world's most-produced jet fighter, the F-16 Fighting Falcon. In 1999, the company re-entered the airframe business with their purchase of Gulfstream Aerospace.

 

History

 

Poster by Erik Nitsche from 1960
 

Electric Boat

General Dynamics traces its ancestry to John Philip Holland's Holland Torpedo Boat Company. This company was responsible for developing the U.S. Navy's first submarines built at Lewis Nixon's Crescent Shipyard, located in Elizabethport, New Jersey. The revolutionary submarine boat Holland VI was built there, its keel being laid down in 1896. Crescent's superintendent and naval architect, Arthur Leopold Busch, supervised the construction of this submarine. After being launched on 17 May 1897, it was eventually purchased by the Navy and renamed USS Holland. The Holland was officially commissioned on 12 October 1900 and became the United States Navy's first submarine, later known as SS-1. The Navy placed an order for more submarines, which were developed in rapid succession and were assembled at two different locations on both coasts. These submarines were known as the A-Class or Adder Class, and became America's first fleet of underwater craft at the beginning of the 20th century.

 

Due to the lengthy and expensive process of introducing the world's first practical submarines, Holland, short on funds, had to part with his company and sell his interest to financier Isaac Leopold Rice, renaming the new firm as the Electric Boat Company on 7 February 1899. Holland effectively lost control of the company and found himself earning a salary of $90 a week as chief engineer, while the company he founded was selling submarines for $300,000 each.[citation needed] Holland resigned from the company effective April 1904. Rice became Electric Boat's first President, remaining there from that time until 1915 when he stepped down just prior to his death on 2 November 1915.

 

Electric Boat gained a reputation for unscrupulous arms dealing in 1904-05, when it sold submarines to Japan's Imperial Japanese Navy and Russia's Imperial Russian Navy, who were then at war. Holland submarines were also sold to the British Royal Navy through the English armaments company Vickers, and to the Dutch to serve in the Royal Netherlands Navy. The new pioneering craft (originally) developed by the company was now legitimized as genuine naval weapons by the world's most powerful navies.

 

In the post-World War II wind-down, Electric Boat was cash-flush but lacking in work, with its workforce shrinking from 13,000 to 4,000 by 1946. Hoping to diversify, the president and chief executive officer, John Jay Hopkins, started looking for companies that would fit into Electric Boat's market.

 

Canadair purchase

They quickly found that Canadair, owned by the Canadian government, was suffering from similar post-war malaise and was up for sale. Hopkins bought the company for $10 million in 1946. Even by the Canadian government's calculations, the factory alone was worth more than $22 million,[citation needed] excluding the value of the remaining contracts for planes or spare parts.

 

When they purchased Canadair, its production line and inventory systems were in disorder. Hopkins hired Canadian-born mass-production specialist H. Oliver West to take over the president's role and return Canadair to profitability. Shortly after the takeover, Canadair began delivering its new Canadair North Star (a version of the DC-4), and was able to deliver aircraft to Trans-Canada Airlines, Canadian Pacific Airlines and British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) well in advance of their contracted delivery times.

 

As defense spending increased with the onset of the Cold War, Canadair would go on to win many Canadian military contracts for the Royal Canadian Air Force, and became a major aerospace company. These included Canadair T-33 trainer, the Canadair Argus long-range maritime reconnaissance and transport aircraft, and the Canadair F-86 Sabre. Between 1950 and 1958, 1,815 Sabres were built. Canadair also produced 200 CF-104 Starfighter supersonic fighter aircraft, a licensed-built version of the Lockheed F-104.

 

In 1976 Canadair was sold back to the Canadian Government, which sold it to Bombardier Inc. in 1986.