This Day in Norwood History-October 8, 1976-Northrop opens plant in Norwood

A new $5 million engineering and administration headquarters building was opened in Norwood by Northrop Corp, yesterday. It will house its Precision Products Department operations.

The plant expansion will not result in any new jobs now, but it should lead to the addition of 400 production workers during the next year or two, according to Joseph Yamron, vice
president and manager of the department.

Northrop has some 900 employees and a payroll of about $12 million in Norwood. The company’s facilities there produce a wide range of high-technology gyroscopes and inertial guidance and control instruments for use in more than 200 defense and space programs.

Yamron said the transfer of the 250 engineers and administration staff to the new building will open up space in the two older plants for additional production and employees, raising the payroll to better than $15 million.

The new building was designed to permit the construction of an addition which would more than double that unit he said.

“I would expect to be asking Northrop to start work on that addition about five years from now,” Yamron said. “And when it’s completed, the total expansion program will increase our facilities here by 70 percent.”

Dr. Thomas O. Paine, president and chief operating officer of Northrop, said the Norwood expansion was concrete evidence of the company’s confidence in the determination of Massachusetts to improve its business climate.

Paine joined Northrop last February. The Los Angeles company manufactures aircraft and electronics and communications systems.

A former administrator of N NASA, Paine spent most of his industrial career with General Electric, at one time as manager of its Meter pi and Instrument Laboratory in Lynn.

Gov. Michael S. Dukakis attended the opening and hailed it as further evidence of the turnaround in the state’s economic condition.

He noted that more than 100,000 jobs have been created in the past 18 months.

Fri, Oct 8, 1976 – 14 · The Boston Globe (Boston, Massachusetts)

By Daniel J. Corcoran Globe Staff (Globe photos by Charles Dixon)