Boeing, Raytheon Technologies relocations deliver more cachet for D.C. region – Washington Business Journal – The Business Journals
Editor’s note: We’re counting down the Washington Business Journal’s top 10 stories of 2022. This is story No. 7.
Less than a month separated announcements from The Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) and Raytheon Technologies Corp. (NYSE: RTX) that they would relocate their respective headquarters to Arlington, solidifying Greater Washington as the place to be for defense contracting goliaths.
In case there was question before these moves, the top five aerospace and defense contractors all now reside in the D.C. area — Boeing and Raytheon join Bethesda’s Lockheed Martin Corp., Reston’s General Dynamics Corp. and Falls Church’s Northrop Grumman Corp.
Raytheon quietly completed its move to Rosslyn as of July 1. Boeing’s move was even less intensive as it really only involved shifting the CEO and CFO to its existing 316,607-square-foot offices in Crystal City.
Both moves have a symbolic feel given no large staff changes or office expansions coincided with either, but the cachet it delivers for the region as the premier place for contractors can have a “broader multiplier effect,” luring more employers in the defense industry supply chain, according to Jack McDougle, CEO of the Greater Washington Board of Trade. McDougle said at the time he sees the Raytheon and Boeing moves as a sign the D.C. region is “starting to really come into our own” as a tech startup region.
As part of its announcement, Boeing announced plans for a research and technology center in the area, but the details are still sparse. How many jobs it would generate and in what time frame, or whether the facility would locate in Boeing’s existing campus or elsewhere are undetermined or haven’t been made public.
Whether new jobs materialize or not, Greater Washington can now say it’s home to the biggest aerospace and defense contractors on the planet. That has strategic market value that cannot be ignored.
“Nothing draws a crowd like a lot of people,” Terry Clower, director of George Mason University’s Center for Regional Analysis, told the Washington Business Journal earlier this year.
Time will tell if that universal truth applies to companies in the defense industry.
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