Company’s Baggage Screeners Qualify for Beijing Games

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OSI Systems Inc., a Hawthorne-based manufacturer of specialized electronics products, has won two modest contracts, including one designed to aid security efforts of the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing.

The company’s security division, Rapiscan Systems, inked a $2 million deal last week to provide its baggage-screening machines to security forces in China’s capital in relation to the summer games.

The company makes a variety of luggage- and passenger-screening equipment in use at airport security checkpoints and other facilities around the world. It has won several contracts recently from the Transportation Security Administration for its X-ray machines and so-called “backscatter” imaging systems used to inspect boarding passengers.

This latest deal, though relatively small for the $547 million company, makes Rapiscan the primary Western supplier of X-ray scanning machines to the Olympic Games, the company said.

Ajay Mehra, president of Rapiscan, said the company has a history of supplying security equipment to international sporting events, but this contract represents the strides the company is making in the Chinese market.

In addition to this deal, OSI also won a $5.8 million contract with New York-based electronics and weapons maker EDO Corp. to supply subassemblies for an electronic jammer system. The devices will be used by the Department of Defense on battlefield vehicles.

OSI was recently honored by EDO as a top manufacturer in 2007.


Chinese Deal

Capstone Turbine Corp. announced a significant distribution agreement in China.

The Chatsworth manufacturer of microturbine energy systems signed an agreement with Shanghai Tech-Steel Petroleum & Natural Gas Technology Development Co. to distribute its devices throughout China. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Shanghai Tech-Steel, which has five offices in China, is an oil and natural gas producer.

Capstone recently signed a similar agreement with a gas company in Brazil.

A microturbine is a machine about the size of a refrigerator. It operates like a jet engine and produces enough low-emission energy to power a small office building. The generator can be used individually or in groups and runs on a variety of fuels, including natural gas and propane.

The announcement came the day after Chuck McBride, the company’s chief financial officer, stepped down to join Synthetic Genomics Inc. The company promoted Edward Reich, vice president of financial planning and analysis, to fill the vacant position.


Management Shuffle

Ducommun Inc., a Carson-based aerospace supplier, is shaking up its management structure.

The company named Anthony Reardon president and chief operating officer, bringing together oversight of its two operating divisions Ducommun AeroStructures and Ducommun Technologies. Previously, there was a president for each division.

Reardon, who was president of Ducommun AeroStructures, will take over the duties of John Walsh, who was president of the technologies division.

Walsh was named vice president of strategy and technology.

Joseph Berenato, chief executive of the company, said the moves were made to improve operational efficiency.

Ducommon is the oldest company in California. At its founding in 1849, it was a general store catering to the miners arriving for the Gold Rush. It has evolved into a $361 million aerospace contractor.


Aircraft Builder Fined

Scaled Composites, a space tourism company recently acquired by aerospace giant Northrop Grumman Corp., was fined more than $25,000 this month for workplace safety violations that resulted in the deaths of three employees last summer.

The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health cited the company for five separate violations including failing to train its workers to properly handle nitrous oxide as a result of the deadly July 26 explosion during testing of a rocket propulsion system at the company’s Mojave facilities. Three other workers were injured in the blast.

“We cooperated fully with Cal/OSHA during the investigation, and we continue to work with the agency so that the enhanced procedures already implemented promote the safest workplace conditions possible,” the company said in a statement.

No criminal charges have been filed.

Scaled Composites, founded in 1982 by aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan, launched SpaceShipOne in 2004. It was the first private manned rocket to reach space.

The July explosion occurred during work on the follow-up to that vehicle a private spaceship being built for Virgin Galactic.

Northrop first invested in Scaled Composites in 2000. Last summer, shortly before the incident, Northrop increased its stake in the company to 100 percent, which analysts said was likely a move designed to gain the company’s proprietary technology.


Staff reporter Richard Clough can be reached at (323) 549-5225, ext. 251, or at

[email protected]

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