Ch 2, ERA to LMCO*

    A 75-year LEGACY of computer industry Information Technology (IT) developments and applications started with Engineering Research Associates (ERA) at 1902 Minnehaha Avenue in St. Paul, Minnesota.  As illustrated by Our Heritage logos, this Information Age Legacy merged and diverged through the corporate ownerships of Remington Rand, UNIVAC, Sperry, UNISYS, PARAMAX, Loral, and Lockheed Martin.  After Burroughs bought Sperry in 1986 to form UNISYS, they began divesting most of the Sperry divisions.  At that time, one of the Burroughs divisions was Systems Development Corporation (SDC); which was merged with the Defense Systems because one of the major SDC programs was the Air Traffic Control (ATC) systems at 120 small airports while one of the Defense Systems programs was the ATC at the 64 major airports. {Editor's note: IBM had the hardware and systems designs at the FAA's 23 en-route centers.}

UNISYS then set up the Defense Systems division as a separate entity, naming it Paramax, with the intention of spinning it off as a new company. When the predicted IPO price feedback from Wall Street was only $5 compared to the wanted $20 - the company plans changed and the Paramax name was dropped. Then Loral purchased the Defense Systems Division.  A year later, Loral sold most of the Defense Systems Division to Lockheed Martin.
 ^*With Board permission in August 2013; a previous revision of this Legacy chapter and the Home page introduction were translated into the German Language, by Dieter Hoffmann.

Lockheed Martin MS2 in Eagan, Minnesota triggered the end of the defense industry part of our Legacy with their November 2010 announcement of a pending 2013 Eagan facility closure. As the closure time drew close, the Dakota County Historical Society resolved to become a repository of the artifacts collected by VIP Club Legacy Committee and to setup a permanent display at the Lawshe Memorial Museum in S St Paul.  See Exhibit Sites for details.
Most of the LMCO contract responsibilities and associated departments were moved to Owego, NY; San Diego, CA; and Manasas, VA.

The Air Traffic Management department and a research group of LMCO engineers moved into a small facility in Eagan until  - January 26th, 2016 when Lockheed Martin entered into an agreement to combine their Government Information Technology and technical services business with Leidos as part of a Reverse Morris Trust transaction. 
The LMCO research group of ~ 25 employees continues to operate in Eagan, Minnesota. Thanks to Steve Koltes for this defense 'logo' icons chart =>.

Corporate Name History

Engineering Research Associates (ERA) came out of the second world war. Our seven decade+ Legacy spans the world's Information Technology evolution since then, including many corporate ownership changes.  UNIVersal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC) technologies became the heart of the information age as defense systems grew to counter the threat of communism.

UNited Information SYStems continues in the Twin Cities with a commercial service center in Eagan - it reports to the UNISYS corporate headquarters located in Blue Bell, PA.  During 2017, the Roseville operations had merged into their Eagan facility.

Our systems are at work today helping to combat terrorism and keep your airline flights safe among other systems. [lab]

Thanks to Keith Behnke for this defense group ownership date table below. 

Date	Ownership Corporation	Twin Cities Company Name
January 1946	Engineering Research Associates	Engineering Research Associates
May 1952	Remington Rand	Engineering Research Associates
July 1955	Sperry Rand	Remington Rand, Engineering Research Associates Division
October 1955	Sperry Rand	Remington Rand UNIVAC, Military Division
January 1962	Sperry Rand	Remington Rand UNIVAC, Defense Systems Division
January 1967	Sperry Rand	Sperry Rand UNIVAC, Federal Systems Division
January 1973	Sperry Rand	Sperry UNIVAC, Defense Systems Division
August 1979	Sperry	Sperry UNIVAC
April 1983	Sperry	Sperry Computer Systems, Defense Systems Division
November 1986	UNISYS	UNISYS Defense Systems, Computer Systems Div.
January 1990	UNISYS	UNISYS Defense Systems, Electronic & Information Systems Group
November 1991*	UNISYS	PARAMAX Electronic & Information Systems Group
December 1991	PARAMAX	PARAMAX Electronics Systems
January 1994**	UNISYS	UNISYS GSG, Electronics Systems
May 1995***	LORAL	LORAL Defense Systems - Eagan
April 1996****	Lockheed Martin Tactical Systems	Lockheed Martin Tactical Defense Systems
June 1997	Lockheed Martin	Lockheed Martin Tactical Defense Systems, Eagan
January 2000	Lockheed Martin	Naval Electronics & Surveillance Systems, Eagan
June 2000	Lockheed Martin	Naval Electronics & Surveillance Systems, Tactical Systems
August 2003	Lockheed Martin	Maritime Systems & Sensors (MS2), Tactical Systems, Eagan
December 2012	Lockheed Martin	The Eagan facility on Pilot Knob road is now empty!
September 2016	Leidos	The Air Traffic Management Operations department will continue in the area, albeit with a different name.

* UNISYS separated its defense business and named it PARAMAX while contemplating doing a spinoff via an IPO, Wall Street wasn't impressed.
** The spin off concept projections didn't meet the financial objective so the PARAMAX 'entity' name was terminated.
*** The defense business portion of UNISYS was sold to LORAL.
**** LORAL sold most of the defense business operations to Lockheed Martin.

General Managers:

Thanks to Robin Bjorklund for the basic data, the GMs listed hereunder were the St. Paul 'resident' leaders of the Defense parts of the company(s).

Period	Name	Title		Period	Name	Title
1946=>1951	John Parker	President ERA		9/96=>1/99	Peter L. Kujawski	President
1951=>1957	William C. Norris	Remington Rand UNIVAC Assistant Vice President		1/99=>2/99	Jay C. Wilcox	Acting President
1957=>1/66	Robert E. McDonald*	VP & GM		2/99=>5/00	James W. Dunn	President
1/66=>1968	Gerald G. Probst*	VP & GM		6/00=>7/00	Joseph A. Antinucci	Acting President
1968=>1970	Forrest Crowe	VP & GM		7/00=>8/03	John C. McNellis	President
1970=>7/73	Richard 'Dick' L. Gehring*	VP & GM		8/03=>1/04	Richard 'Rick' J. Martin	Acting President
7/73=>7/77	Ernest Hams	VP & GM		1/04=>5/06	Richard M. Ambrose	President / V.P. & G. M.
7/77=>10/84	Richard 'Dick' L. Seaberg*	VP & GM		5/06=>6/06	Joseph W. Trench	Acting VP and GM
10/84= >11/86	Wilfred 'Bill' Geiger	VP & GM#		6/06 => 11/10	Richard A. Udicious	VP & GM
11/86=>6/92	Albert 'Al' F. Zettlemoyer**	VP & GM		11/10 => 4/11	John P. Samuelson	General Manager
6/92=>7/94	Dennis Christ***	VP & GM		4/11=> 12/12	Mark Stanga	Site Manager
7/94=>3/96	Sidney P. Rundell	President		1/13 => 11/15	Scott Schmidt	Site Manager
3/96=>9/96	Jay C. Wilcox	Acting President		11/15 =>9/16	James Sexton	Site Manager

# From 12/84 to 12/86 St. Paul Operations reported to Ed Decker who was a UNIVAC corporate Vice President and President of the Defense Product Group.
*Mr. McDonald, Probst, Gehring, and Seaberg all left St. Paul for corporate positions on the Eastern seaboard. Since the time that Bob McDonald moved east, the Twin Cities commercial operations have been reporting to the Blue Bell management.

**When Burroughs merged the SDC and Sperry Defense groups, the former head of SDC was put in charge - Fred Jenny. At one time Mr. Jenny had worked at IBM. He lured Al Zettlemoyer from IBM's Owego NY facility to run the St. Paul defense operations.  Bill Geiger was assigned to be Al's 'deputy' to make for a smooth transition of personnel. There was a period of time in the late 80s and early 90s that Fred Jenny's son worked as a staff engineer in the Twin Cities.

***Dennis had been VP of Navy Systems reporting to Bill Geiger. When Bill retired and Al went to a corporate position - Dennis was put in charge of the defense operations in St. Paul.