Aerospace Suppliers Object to 'Buy American' Provision in Visit to Hill

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Contact: Janet Neale of the Aerospace Industries Association of America, 703-358-1076 or neale@aia-aerospace.org

WASHINGTON, July 8 /U.S. Newswire/ -- American aerospace suppliers will tell members of Congress tomorrow that U.S. manufacturing jobs would be lost, not gained, as a net result of the so-called "Buy American" amendments in the FY04 Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 1588) as passed by the House of Representatives last month. The Senate declined to include any parallel provisions in its version of the bill.

About 40 members of the Suppliers Management Council (SMC) of the Aerospace Industries Association of America (AIA) will convene their first annual Washington conference Wednesday with the goal of educating key legislators on the public policy issues of importance to small and medium-sized industry manufacturers. The SMC represents 150 military and civil aerospace transportation sub-contractors that employ approximately 75,000 workers.

The suppliers will urge legislators to oppose the H.R. 1588 amendments which require the Defense Department to buy weapons components exclusively from domestic sources. The proposed requirements also set a deadline of 2007 for limiting "major defense acquisition" contracts to bidders with 100 percent American-made machine tools.

"The Buy America amendments would put many aerospace vendors out of business by closing the door to manufacturing components, such as silicon chips and flat panel displays that companies can obtain only from offshore suppliers," said Judy Northup, Vice President of Dallas-based Vought Aircraft and SMC chair.

Northup noted that the machine tool provision of H.R. 1588 could force many SMC members to make a grim choice between a multi-million dollar re-structuring of production lines or bankruptcy.

John W. Douglass, AIA President and CEO, said "American aerospace workers depend on a global supply chain that begins and ends in the United States." He said that while many companies have to buy tools and materials from abroad, the industry as a whole leads the economy in manufactured exports. He added that offshore markets, by consuming 40 percent of U.S. aerospace products annually, create and stabilize jobs at home.

SMC delegations will also call for bipartisan support of a Senate-passed amendment to the FY04 FAA Authorization Bill that provides $300 million over six years to modernize the country's air traffic management network. In addition, they will ask Congress to adopt pending bills that streamline the export licensing process for commercial satellite systems and create NASA and FAA scholarship programs to support college students who choose aerospace-related courses of study.

The SMC conference, which runs through July 10th, will include symposia on Small Business Administration policies and post-Cold War Pentagon procurement reforms

Judith W. Northup
Vice President - Human Resources,
Administration & Information Services
Vought Aircraft Industries, Inc.
Judith W. (Judy) Northup is Vice President, Human Resources, Administration and Information Services for Vought Aircraft Industries, Inc. She was named to the position June 24, 2002. Ms. Northup is responsible for human resources, security, EEO/affirmative action, communications, community relations, health, safety and environmental affairs. She also oversees information technology and implementation of SAP for Vought.
Previously she was Vice President, Materiel. She was named to the position with the organization of Vought Aircraft Industries as an independent company July 24, 2000. Her responsibilities included procurement, supplier interface and relations, inventory and production control, kitting, external transportation, receiving and warehousing, shipping, material quality, material cost management, estimating and price/cost analysis.
In 1999, Ms. Northup was named Sector Vice President - Materiel for Northrop Grumman's Integrated Systems and Aerostructures Sector, the forerunner to Vought Aircraft Industries. In 1997, she was appointed Vice President for Northrop Grumman's Commercial Aircraft Division.
Ms. Northup has extensive experience in finance, materiel and manufacturing. She joined Vought Corporation, an LTV Corporation subsidiary, in 1979 as a cost accountant in pricing. In 1982, she transferred to the materiel organization as a cost analyst, and was promoted in 1984 to Manager of Materials Productivity. In 1990, she was named Manager of Property Systems and Controls. In 1992, she moved into production as Director of Manufacturing Controls.
With the reorganization of the division in late 1996, she was assigned the dual responsibility of division Director of Manufacturing Control Systems and Director of Manufacturing Controls and Industrial Engineering.
Before joining the company, she owned and operated an accounting services business and previously had been a cost accountant for Dresser Industries.
Ms. Northup has a Bachelor of Business degree in Accounting from the University of Texas at Arlington and a Master of Business Administration degree in Contract Acquisition and Management from the University of Dallas. She was a member of the 1994 graduating class of Leadership Texas, an executive education program of the Foundation for Women's Resources.

Basicly a beancounter with no real manufacturing/production background.
The thought of actually making something in-house is probably beyond her comprehension.
I bet she can't even cook her own meals, probably orders carry-out.

Vought Aircraft is owned by The Carlyle Group.

The Carlyle Group - C for capitalism
Jun 26th 2003
From The Economist print edition
The secretive Carlyle Group gives capitalism a bad name. But dismantling the whole system (see article) may be slightly over the top
ON the day Osama bin Laden's men attacked America, Shafiq bin Laden, described as an estranged brother of the terrorist, was at an investment conference in Washington, DC, along with two people who are close to President George Bush: his father, the first President Bush, and James Baker, the former secretary of state who masterminded the legal campaign that secured Dubya's move to the White House. The conference was hosted by the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm that manages billions of dollars, including, at the time, some bin Laden family wealth. It also employs Messrs Bush and Baker.
In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, when no one was being allowed in or out of the United States, many members of the bin Laden family in America were spirited home to Saudi Arabia. The revival of defence spending that followed greatly increased the value of the Carlyle Group's investments in defence companies.
The Carlyle Group is a godsend for conspiracy theorists who are convinced that the world is run by, and on behalf of, a shadowy network of wealthy men. Sure enough, it was not long before Cynthia McKinney, a Democrat member of Congress, pointed a finger at Carlyle, noting in an interview that “persons close to this administration are poised to make huge profits off America's new war’ and that, despite “numerous warnings’, they did not alert the “people of New York who were needlessly murdered’. “What’, she asked, “do they have to hide?’
You need not be a conspiracy theorist, though, to be concerned about what lies behind Carlyle's success. Can a firm that is so deeply embedded in the iron triangle where industry, government and the military converge be good for democracy? Carlyle arguably takes to a new level the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower feared might “endanger our liberties or democratic process’. What red-blooded capitalist can truly admire a firm built, to a significant degree, on cronyism; surely, this sort of access capitalism is for ghastly places like Russia, China or Africa, not the land of the free market?
Named after the luxurious New York hotel favoured by the firm's founders, Carlyle even got started by exploiting a tax loophole, a legitimate capitalistic activity, if not an honourable one. This particular loophole bizarrely allowed profitable American firms to enjoy a large tax break by buying the losses incurred by Eskimo-owned companies in Alaska. In 1987, this opportunity brought together a flamboyant dealmaker, Stephen Norris, who left Carlyle in 1995, with David Rubenstein, a former aide to President Carter and still the brains behind the firm.
After this initial success, though, the going got tougher. Carlyle missed out on several attractive deals while completing some duff ones, including buying a stake in Caterair International, a company that later collapsed under the weight of its junk-bond financing. Still, it did introduce them to a man who became well worth knowing: George W. Bush, a director of Caterair.
Carlyle really only took off after it hired Frank Carlucci, a former secretary of defence and deputy director of the CIA, in 1989. Mr Carlucci was able to open doors in Washington that had hitherto been closed to the firm, allowing it to participate in many lucrative deals.
Although Dan Briody's book is useful reading for anybody interested in American politics today, it tells Carlyle's story in the style of a Tom Clancy or John Grisham novel. This is rather a shame. Instead of expanding in an unrelenting tone of shocked disapproval, the author could have offered a serious view on a number of difficult questions.
For instance, if privatisation can increase the efficiency of the notoriously inefficient defence sector, how should the inherent political and security risks best be managed? Given that the rewards for success in the private sector so far exceed those for public service, how can talented people be persuaded to enter public service without their former private-sector activities becoming a source of suspicion?
While some former presidents are happy to play golf, others may feel they can still earn a decent living. What rules should govern the commercial activities of former President Bush; or, for that matter, former British prime minister, John Major; or former South Korean prime minister, Park Tae-joon—all of whom have taken the Carlyle nickel? Mr Bush senior receives private intelligence briefings that are not available to ordinary investors. Does his inside knowledge of, and possible influence over, the administration's political strategy towards, say, North Korea and Saudi Arabia directly benefit Carlyle? If so, does that constitute an unacceptable conflict of interest?
Perhaps there would be less reason to worry about Carlyle if there were rival clubs of ex-political heavyweights competing within the iron triangle. Alas, this firm seems to be an aspiring monopolist, hoovering up former public officials from across the political divide and, increasingly, from across the world. It is becoming more ambitious in Europe, and keenly eyeing China. Perhaps there would be less reason to worry if Carlyle's activities were more open—but as a private equity firm, it has largely escaped America's recent efforts to improve the governance and transparency of companies, which is unfortunate. At a time when America is aggressively promoting democracy and capitalism abroad, including by military means, it would be helpful if its politicians and businesses were regarded as cleaner than clean. Shrouded in secrecy, Carlyle calls capitalism into question.