Black Water

Xe Services LLC , colloquially referred to as “Blackwater“, is a private military company founded as Blackwater USA in 1997 by Erik Prince and Al Clark. In October 2007, the company was renamed Blackwater Worldwide. Blackwater has a wide array of business divisions, subsidiaries, and spin-off corporations but the organization as a whole has courted much controversy.

Based in North Carolina, Xe operates a tactical training facility which the company claims is the world’s largest, and at which it trains more than 40,000 people a year, mostly from US and other military and police services. The training consists of military offensive and defensive operations, as well as smaller scale personal security.

The company announced on February 13, 2009, that it would operate under the new name “Xe”. In a memo sent to employees, President Gary Jackson wrote that the new name “reflects the change in company focus away from the business of providing private security.” A spokesman for the company stated that it feels the Blackwater name is too closely associated with the company’s work in the occupation of Iraq^. Spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said there was no meaning in the new name, which the company took over a year to arrive at in an internal search.

Xe is currently the largest of the US State Department’s three private security contractors. Of the 987 contractors Xe provides, 744 are US citizens. At least 90 percent of the company’s revenue comes from government contracts, of which two-thirds are no-bid contracts. Xe provided security services in Iraq to the United States federal government, particularly the Central Intelligence Agency on a contractual basis. They no longer have a license to operate in Iraq: the new Iraqi government made multiple attempts to expel them from their country, and denied their application for an operating license in January 2009. However, the company is still under contract with the State Department and some Xe personnel will likely remain working illegally in Iraq at least until September 2009.

Cash Money Records

Cash Money Records is an American hip hop record label founded in 1989 by brothers Bryan “Birdman” Williams and Ronald “Slim” Williams in New Orleans, Louisiana.

History

For the first few years, Cash Money played host to a number of local releases by artists, selling hundreds of thousands of albums without ever releasing a music video or having a Billboard hit. Cash Money’s big break came in 1997 when the label’s most popular artists, the Hot Boys, B.G. and Juvenile in particular, caught the attention of Universal Records executives. Juvenile’s Cash Money release Solja Rags sold 200,000 copies independently. In 1998, Cash Money signed a $30 million pressing and distribution contract with Universal, entitling the label to 85% of its royalties, 50% of its publishing revenues and ownership of all masters. However, B.G. and Juvenile later left the label in 2002, claiming financial mismanagement.

Between 2001 and 2003, the label sold 7 million albums. The song “Still Fly” by the Big Tymers was nominated for two Grammy Awards. In April 2003, Juvenile returned to the label for a reported $4 million deal, and in return, he signed over the rights to Juve The Great, an album which would go on to sell over a million copies. Cash Money also signed deals with several other artists, including Sean John and Jacob the Jeweler. In 2007, former Hot Boy member Lil Wayne was named president of Cash Money Records and CEO of Young Money Entertainment, giving the rapper full creative control over all releases under the two labels. Later that year, however, Lil Wayne stepped down as president to focus on his career, especially Tha Carter III. In 2008, Lil Wayne re-signed with Cash Money, ensuring that his next few albums will be produced by the label. In September of 2008, the label diversified by releasing rocker Kevin Rudolf’s smash-hit debut single “Let It Rock” featuring label-mate Lil Wayne, it went on to sell over 3,200,000 to-date, easily becoming the best selling rap rock single in history. On October 15th, 2008 at the MOBO Awards, British R&B singer Jay Sean announced that he had signed with Cash Money Records.

In February 2009, the Williams brothers were featured in CNBC’s Newbos: The Rise of America’s New Black Overclass, a documentary show profiling several black multi-millionaires. Former Roc-A-Fella Artist Freeway and 2 Pistols recently signed to the label. On August 16th, 2009, Bow Wow announced that he signed with Cash Money Records.

The Orchard

The Orchard is a New York City based digital distribution and entertainment services company that works with independent bands. The company was started in 1997 by Richard Gottehrer and Scott Cohen.

It focuses on distribution of digitized music, video, and new media to online music retailers, advertising firms, and music and film agencies, and caters to numerous well-known independent artists and labels such as Barsuk, Nuclear Blast, and Daptone. The company has offices and representatives in 27 regions around the world.

The Orchard was formerly owned by Dimensional Associates, which also owns eMusic, but has since merged with competing distributor DMGI and now trades on Nasdaq. The label bought TVT Records in a bidding war over the bankrupt label.^[1] Most recently, the company has announced a distribution partnership with Amie Street and Wynton Marsalis.

Def Jam Recordings

Def Jam Recordings is a United States based hip-hop record label, owned by Universal Music Group, and operates as a part of The Island Def Jam Music Group. In the UK, the label takes on the name Def Jam UK and is operated through Mercury Music Group.

Company history

Def Jam was founded by Rick Rubin in his dorm room at New York University and its first release was a single by his punk-rock group, Hose. Russell Simmons joined Rubin shortly after they were introduced to each other by DJ Jazzy Jay. The first single released with a Def Jam Recordings logo was T La Rock & Jazzy Jay “It’s Yours”. The first releases with a Def Jam Recordings catalogue number were LL Cool J’s “I Need a Beat”, and the Beastie Boys’, “Rock Hard”, both in 1984. The singles sold well, eventually leading to a distribution deal with CBS Records’ (which would later become Sony Music Entertainment) Columbia Records the following year. This created a short-lived subsidiary label called OBR Records, catered toward R&B artists — the first artist signed to that imprint was Oran “Juice” Jones, who enjoyed success with his hit single “The Rain”. Def Jam also signed thrash metal band Slayer. As the decade drew to a close, the label signed Public Enemy, whose controversial lyrical content garnered the company both critical acclaim and disdain.

Lyor Cohen became president of Def Jam in 1988, after winning a power struggle with Rubin, who would shortly thereafter leave the company to form Def American Recordings (now known as American Recordings).

Def Jam under PolyGram

In the early 1990s, the company created “Rush Associated Labels,” a larger moniker under which Def Jam and its various auxiliary labels would operate as subsidiaries. By 1992, despite recent multi-platinum selling releases from ONYX, LL Cool J., Public Enemy, and EPMD, Def Jam ran into severe financial troubles and was faced with folding. Salvation came in 1994, however, when PolyGram purchased Sony’s 50% stake in Def Jam Recordings — subsequently bringing the label into their fold. Following PolyGram’s acquisition of the company, Def Jam released Warren G’s Regulate… G Funk Era, which went triple platinum and effectively revived the label.

PolyGram acquired an additional 9.8% in Def Jam Recordings in 1995, further strengthening their ownership of the company. Shortly thereafter, “Rush Associated Labels” was renamed “Def Jam Music Group.” Def Jam remained in the black, as its veteran star LL Cool J released his widely successful album Mr. Smith in 1995. The label later signed a then-teenaged Foxy Brown, whose début album Ill Na Na became a platinum seller in 1997.

Def Jam under Universal Music Group

In 1998, PolyGram was purchased by Seagrams and merged into its Universal Music Group. Following Universal Music Group’s takeover of PolyGram, it purchased the remaining interest of Def Jam Recordings from Russell Simmons for a reported $100 million. Simmons went on to focus more on his Phat Farm clothing line and the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN). Universal merged Def Jam with Island Records to form The Island Def Jam Music Group. In spite of the formation of IDJMG, Def Jam and Island continue to operate as separate imprints underneath the bigger umbrella.

Lyor Cohen was appointed president of IDJMG, and Kevin Liles succeeded him as president of Def Jam. In 1999, Def Jam created an R&B spin-off label called Def Soul Records, which inherited many of Island Records’ urban artists, including Dru Hill and its lead singer Sisqo, The Isley Brothers and Kelly Price. Def Soul also issued recordings by Musiq, Montell Jordan, Case, 112, Patti LaBelle, and Christina Milian.

Also in 1999, the label also began distributing releases by Murder Inc. Records, run by former Def Jam executive Irv Gotti. Murder Inc.’s roster of artists would include Ja Rule, Ashanti, Lloyd, Vita. The following year, it launched another subsidiary, Def Jam South, which focused on Southern rap and distributed releases from labels such as Disturbing tha Peace Records, whose successful artists have included Ludacris, Chingy, and Bobby Valentino. Def Jam South would begin distributing Slip-N-Slide Records releases, featuring Trina, Rick Ross, Plies, and others, in 2006.

Def Jam in the 2000s

In 2000, Lyor Cohen announced Def Jam Germany, the first international Def Jam company. This increased the label’s presence around the world. Def Jam Germany signed German rappers Spezializtz, and Philly MC. The label was located in Berlin and opened in May 23, 2000. In addition to signing and marketing local artists, Def Jam Germany also marketed all U.S. signed Def Jam artists in the German territory.

In 2002, Def Soul was absorbed into its Def Jam parent. A year later, Murder Inc. became the center of a money laundering investigation involving illegal profits from drug trade,  leading to the label’s eventual release from its distribution contract by 2005. Roc-A-Fella Records was sold to the company in 2004, by which time it had launched the career of producer-turned-rapper Kanye West.

DMX helped the company to great heights during 1998 and 1999 selling millions of records and revived hardcore hip hop during this time. The same year, Cohen left IDJMG for Warner Music Group, and was replaced by former Arista executive L.A. Reid. An unhappy Liles eventually decided to follow Cohen to Warner.  A bidding war for Jay-Z’s contract began, and Reid appointed Jay-Z president of Def Jam. 

Under Jay-Z’s leadership, Def Jam launched new successful acts such as pop and contemporary R&B singers Rihanna and Ne-Yo. Jay-Z’s contract as president of Def Jam was not renewed, forcing him to step down at the end of 2007, remaining with Roc-a-Fella/Def Jam as a recording artist.  Following Jay-Z’s resignation as president, L.A. Reid took over leadership of the label, as opposed to hiring a replacement. It was announced in early June 2008 that Def Jam A&R executive Shakir Stewart, credited with bringing Rick Ross to the label, would take over as vice president of Def Jam. Stewart committed suicide on November 1, 2008.

KBR, Inc.

History

M.W. Kellogg

In 1901, Morris Kellogg founded The M. W. Kellogg Company in New York City. The company was incorporated in 1905 and its headquarters was moved to Jersey City, New Jersey. Initially Kellogg’s main business was power plant construction and fabrication of power plant components, but the development of hammer forge welding techniques helped ready the company to move into refining as the petroleum industry developed.

Kellogg’s entry into process engineering initially focused on the Fleming cracking process, but in the 1920s Kellogg partnered with The Texas Company (Texaco) and Standard Oil of Indiana to purchase the Cross thermal cracking process. Kellogg set up one of the first petroleum laboratories in the country in 1926 to commercialize and then license the technology. This led to Kellogg building some 130 units in the U.S. and abroad.

In the 1930s and ’40s Kellogg worked with leading refiners on various technologies. For the war effort, these developments led to the construction of six hydroreformer units twenty fluid catalytic cracking units and the only complete refinery built during World War II. Even bigger than the refining work was the gaseous diffusion plant at Oak Ridge, Tennessee built as part of the Manhattan project. This period also included the development of the Benedict-Webb-Rubin (BWR) equation of state which has since become an industry mainstay and provided the basis for Kellogg’s lead in cryogenics.

The 1950s Kellogg technology expanded into steam pyrolysis, Orthoflow fluid catalytic cracking, phenol-from-cumene and coal-to-synthetic fuels technologies and the ’60s saw the growth in helium recovery, ethylene and the development of Kellogg’s ammonia process.

In 1970 Kellogg moved from New York City to Houston, Texas and in 1975, they completed the move by relocating the research and development lab as well. The ’70s saw Kellogg become the first American contractor to receive contracts from the People’s Republic of China. Kellogg’s international work expanded with the major ammonia complexes in China, Indonesia and Mexico as well as LNG liquefaction plant in Algeria and 2 receiving terminals in the U.S., the world’s largest LPG plant in Kuwait and four fluid catalytic cracking units in Mexico. The ’80s saw continuation of global activity in LNG and ethylene with millisecond furnaces starting up in the U.S.

Brown & Root

Brown & Root was founded in Texas in 1919 by two brothers, George R. Brown and Herman Brown, with money provided by their brother-in-law, Daniel Root. The company began its operations by building roads in Texas.

One of its first large-scale projects, according to the book Cadillac Desert, was building a dam on the Texas Colorado River near Austin during the Depression years. For assistance in federal payments, the company turned to the local Congressman, Lyndon B. Johnson. Brown & Root was the principal source of campaign funds for Johnson’s initial run for Congress in 1937, in return for persuading the Bureau of Reclamation to change its rules against paying for a dam on land the federal government did not own, a decision that had to go all the way to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, according to Robert A. Caro’s book The Path to Power. After other very profitable construction projects for the federal government, Brown & Root gave massive sums of cash for Johnson’s first run for the U.S. Senate in 1941. Brown and Root reportedly violated IRS rules over campaign contributions, largely in charging off its donations as deductible company expenses, according to Caro. A subsequent IRS investigation threatened to bring criminal charges of illegal campaign donations against Brown & Root, as well as Johnson and others. Roosevelt himself told the IRS to back off and allowed Brown and Root to settle for pennies on the dollar.

During World War II, Brown & Root built the Naval Air Station Corpus Christi and its subsidiary Brown Shipbuilding produced a series of warships for the U.S. Government.

In 1947, Brown & Root built one of the world’s first offshore oil platforms.

According to Tracy Kidder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book Mountains Beyond Mountains, Brown & Root was a contractor in the Péligre Dam project. The project was designed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and financed by the Export-Import Bank of the United States.

Halliburton years

Following the death of Herman Brown, Halliburton Energy Services acquired Brown & Root in December 1962. According to Dan Briody, who wrote a book on the subject, the company became part of a consortium of four companies that built about 85 percent of the infrastructure needed by the Navy during the Vietnam War. At the height of the anti-war movement of the 1960s, Brown & Root was derided as “Burn & Loot” by protesters.

The extent of their services included a vast array of logistical operations, historically under the jurisdiction of the military. Such operations included laundry services, meal services (Burger King, Subway, Papa John’s Pizza), entertainment (Internet and cable access), and recreation (basketball courts and gym equipment).

In 1989, Halliburton acquired another major engineering and construction contractor, C. F. Braun & Co., of Alhambra California, and merged it into Brown & Root.

From 1995-2002, Halliburton KBR was awarded at least $2.5 billion to construct and run military bases, some in secret locations, as part of the Army’s Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP).

In September 2005, under a competitive bid contract it won in July 2005 to provide debris removal and other emergency work associated with natural disasters, KBR started assessment of the cleanup and reconstruction of Gulf Coast Marine and Navy facilities damaged in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The facilities include: Naval Station Pascagoula, Naval Station Gulfport, the John C. Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, two smaller U.S. Navy facilities in New Orleans, Louisiana and others in the Gulf Coast region. KBR has had similar contracts for more than 15 years.

Formation of KBR, Inc.

Halliburton announced on April 5, 2007 that it had finally broken ties with KBR, which has been its contracting, engineering and construction unit as a part of the company for 44 years. The move was prefaced by a statement registered with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission on April 15, 2006 stating that Halliburton planned to sell up to 20 percent of its KBR stock on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). On November 16, 2006, KBR shares were offered for the public in an Initial Public Offering with shares priced at $17. The shares closed on the first day up more than 22 percent to $20.75 a share.

On May 7, 2008, the company announced that it would acquire Birmingham, Alabama-based engineering and construction firm BE&K for $550 million. BE&K plans to remain headquartered in Birmingham.

Planned office facility

In 2008 the firm announced that a new office facility would appear at the intersection of the Grand Parkway and Interstate 10 in unincorporated western Harris County, Texas, between Houston and Katy. The new complex will be in close proximity to the Energy Corridor area of Houston. KBR will continue to have a corporate presence in Downtown. In December KBR said that it would not continue with the plans due to a weakened economy.

Kosovo

In 1996, President Bill Clinton awarded Brown & Root a contract to support U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops as part of the SFOR operation in the Balkan region. This contract was extended to also include KFOR operations in Kosovo starting in 1999. Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo was constructed by the 94th Engineer Construction Battalion together with the private Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) under the direction of the Army Corps of Engineers. KBR is also the prime contractor for the operation of the camp. The camp is built mainly of wooden, semi permanent SEA (South East Asia) huts and is surrounded by a 2.5 meter high earthen wall. To construct the base two hills were lopped off and the valley between them was filled with the resulting material.

Afghanistan

KBR was awarded a $100 million contract in 2002 to build a new U.S. embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, from the State Department.

KBR has also been awarded 15 Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) task orders worth more than $216 million for work under Operation Enduring Freedom, the military name for operations in Afghanistan. These include establishing base camps at Kandahar and Bagram Air Base and training foreign troops from the Republic of Georgia.

Cuba

KBR has also been actively involved in the development of works in Cuba. Most notably sections of the U.S. Naval base in Guantanamo, completed in 2006. Camp 6, the newest facility built for detainees at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, is designed after a maximum-security penitentiary in the U.S^.

Iraq

KBR employs more American private contractors and holds a larger contract with the U.S. government than does any other firm in Iraq. The company’s roughly 14,000 U.S. employees in Iraq provide logistical support to the U.S. armed forces.

The United States Army hired KBR to provide housing for approximately 100,000 soldiers in Iraq in a contract worth $200 million, based on a long-term contract signed in December 2001 under the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP). Other LOGCAP orders have included a pre-invasion order to repair oil facilities in Iraq; $28.2 million to build POW camps; and $40.8 million to accommodate the Iraqi Survey Group, which was deployed after the invasion to find weapons of mass destruction.

The Army’s actions came under fire from California Congressman Henry Waxman, who, along with Michigan Congressman John Dingell, asked the General Accounting Office to investigate whether the U.S. Agency for International Development and The Pentagon were circumventing government contracting procedures and favoring companies with ties to the Bush administration. They also accused KBR of inflating prices for importing gasoline into Iraq. In June 2003, the Army announced that it would replace KBR’s oil-infrastructure contract with two public-bid contracts worth a maximum total of $1 billion, to be awarded in October. However, the Army announced in October it would expand the contract ceiling to $2 billion and the solicitation period to December. As of October 16, 2003, KBR had performed nearly $1.6 billion worth of work. In the meantime, KBR has subcontracted with two companies to work on the project: Boots & Coots, an oil field emergency response firm that Halliburton works in partnership with (CEO Jerry L. Winchester was a former Halliburton manager) and Wild Well Control. Both firms are based in Texas.

KBR’s maintenance work in Iraq has been criticized after reports of soldiers electrocuted from faulty wiring. Specifically, KBR has been charged by the Army for improper installation of electrical units in bathrooms throughout U.S. bases. CNN reported that an Army Special Forces soldier, Staff Sergeant Ryan Maseth, died by electrocution in his shower stall on January 2, 2008. Army documents showed that KBR inspected the building and found serious electrical problems a full 11 months before his death. KBR noted “several safety issues concerning the improper grounding of electrical devices.” But KBR’s contract did not cover “fixing potential hazards;” It covered repairing items only after they broke down. Maseth’s family has sued KBR. In January 2009, the US Army CID investigator assigned to the case recommended that Maseth’s official cause of death should be changed from “accidental” to “negligent homicide”. KBR supervisors were blamed for failing to ensure electrical and plumbing work were performed by qualified employees, and for failure to inspect the work. In late January 2009, the Defense Contract Management Agency handed down a “Level III Corrective Action Request” to KBR. This is disseminated after a contractor is found being in a state of “serious noncompliance,” and is one step from suspending or terminating a contract. Despite these issues, KBR was recently awarded a $35 million contract for major electrical work.

Employee safety

As of June 9, 2008, 81 American and foreign KBR employees and subcontractors have been killed, and more than 380 have been wounded by hostile action while performing services under the company’s government contracts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait. Family members of injured or killed employees have sued the company in relation to the 2004 Iraq KBR convoy ambush.

Sexual assault

Jamie Leigh Jones testified at a Congressional hearing that she had been gang-raped by as many as seven co-workers in Iraq in 2005 when she was an employee of KBR, and then falsely imprisoned in a shipping container for 24 hours without food or drink. KBR was a subsidiary of Halliburton at the time. Jones and her lawyers said that 38 women have contacted her reporting similar experiences while working as contractors in Iraq, Kuwait, and other countries. On September 15, 2009, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Jones, in a 2 to 1 ruling, and found that her alleged injuries were not, in fact, in any way related to her employment and thus, not covered by the contract.

Jamie Leigh Jones’s case led Senator Al Franken to table an amendment to the defence appropriations bill, which was passed in October 2009, to allow employees of firms with government contracts access to the courts.

Mary Beth Kineston, an Ohio truck driver, said she was sexually harassed and groped by several KBR employees, and was later fired after reporting to the company the threats and harassment endured by female employees.

Human trafficking lawsuit

On August 28, 2008, defense contractor KBR, Inc. and a Jordanian subcontractor were accused of human trafficking in a federal lawsuit filed in Los Angeles. The suit alleged that 13 Nepali men were recruited by Daoud & Partners to work in hotels and restaurants in Jordan, but upon arrival all 13 men had their passports seized by the contractor and were sent to Iraq to work on the Al-Asad U.S. air base. Twelve of the employees were abducted when their unprotected convoy was attacked by a group calling itself the Army of Ansar al-Sunna, while enroute to the base. Shortly thereafter, a video was released of one of the men being beheaded and the other 11 shot. The remaining employee, Buddi Prasad Gurung, claims to have been held against his will for 15 months, during which time he was forced to work at the base. Reuters quoted attorney Matthew Handley as saying, “It doesn’t appear that any of them knew they were going to Iraq”. KBR made no public comment on the lawsuit, but released a statement which stated in part that it, “in no way condones or tolerates unethical or illegal behaviour”.

Political connections

Brown and Root had a well-documented relationship with U.S. President Lyndon Johnson, which began when he used his position as a Texas congressman to assist them in landing a lucrative dam contract. In return they gave him the funds for his 1948 Senate race against Coke R. Stevenson. The relationship continued for years, with Johnson awarding military construction contracts to B&R.

Following the end of the first Gulf War, the Pentagon, led by then Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, paid Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root Services over $8.5 million to study the use of private military forces with American soldiers in combat zones.

Some contoversy arose in February 1999 when KBR was awarded a substantial contract to provide emergency support to US military operations in the Balkans, despite DynCorp having been awarded a contract, known as LOGCAP II, in 1994 to provide emergency support in exactly these sort of circumstances.

RIO, or Restore Iraqi Oil, was awarded to KBR without competition when the United States Department of Defense determined that KBR was “the only contractor that could satisfy the requirement for immediate execution of the plan“. As of September 2006, hearings were still being conducted into the RIO project over possible billing, management, and procurement violations.

Another prime topic of interest is the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) report on billing-methods for meals. The auditors knew about, but disregarded, the Army’s requirement, whereas KBR was directed to have varying amounts of meals prepared at certain locations regardless of how many people actually used the service. Although KBR was paying for the food, the DCAA did not believe they should be able to charge the DoD for meals prepared but not served.

In June 2008, Charles M. Smith, the senior civilian Defense Department official overseeing the government’s multibillion-dollar contract with KBR during the early stages of the war in Iraq said he was forced out of his job in 2004 for refusing to approve $1 billion in questionable charges to KBR. Smith refused to approve the payments because Army auditors determined that KBR lacked credible records to support more than $1 billion in spending. Smith stated, “They had a gigantic amount of costs they couldn’t justify.” He said that following his action he was suddenly dismissed and according to media “his successors — after taking the unusual step of hiring an outside contractor to consider KBR’s claims — approved most of the payments he had tried to block.”

Shell companies in Cayman Islands

In March 2008, the Boston Globe reported that KBR had avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Medicare and Social Security taxes by hiring workers through shell companies based in the tax haven of the Cayman Islands. More than 21,000 people working for KBR in Iraq – including about 10,500 Americans – are listed as employees of two companies, Service Employers International Inc., and Overseas Administrative Services, which exist on the island only in computer files in an office. KBR acknowledged that the companies were set up “in order to allow us to reduce certain tax obligations of the company and its employees.” But KBR does claim the workers as its own with regards to the legal immunity extended to employers working in Iraq.

Bribing Nigerian officials

On February 6, 2009, the Justice Department announced KBR had been charged with paying “tens of millions of dollars” in bribes to Nigerian officials in order to win government contracts, in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. A 22-page document filed in a Houston federal court alleged massive bribes in connection with the construction of a natural gas plant on Bonny Island requiring $7.5bn USD. KBR officials had no comment. KBR was found guilty and ordered to pay $420m USD in penalties. Former CEO Albert Jackson Stanley, who ran KBR when it was a subsidiary to Halliburton, agreed to be sentenced to 7 years in prison via plea agreement.

Legacy in Houston

Houston’s convention center was named after company founder and namesake George R. Brown. Rice University’s Margaret Root Brown College, George R. Brown School of Engineering, George R. Brown Hall, Alice Pratt Brown Hall and Herman Brown Hall are all named for Brown and members of the Brown family, who have made significant monetary contributions to Rice and other Houston schools. A residence hall at Southwestern University is named after Herman Brown.

It is Sandia’s mission to maintain the reliability and surety of nuclear weapon systems, conduct research and development in arms control and nonproliferation technologies, and investigate methods for the disposal of the US’s nuclear weapons program’s hazardous waste. Other missions include research and development in energy and environmental programs, as well as the surety of critical national infrastructures. In addition, Sandia is home to a wide variety of research including computational biology, mathematics (through its Computer Science Research Institute), materials science, alternative energy, psychology, and cognitive science initiatives. Sandia formerly hosted ASCI Red, one of the world’s fastest supercomputers until its recent decommission, and now hosts ASCI Red Storm, originally known as Thor’s Hammer. Sandia is also home to the Z Machine. The Z Machine is the largest X-ray generator in the world and is designed to test materials in conditions of extreme temperature and pressure. It is operated by Sandia National Laboratories to gather data to aid in computer modeling of nuclear weapons.

Lab history

Sandia National Laboratories’ roots go back to World War II and the Manhattan Project. Prior to the United States formally entering the war, the U.S. Army leased land near Albuquerque, New Mexico airport known as Oxnard Field, to service transient Army and U.S. Navy aircraft. In January 1941 construction began on the Albuquerque Army Air Base, leading to establishment of the Bombardier School-Army Advanced Flying School near the end of the year. Soon thereafter it was renamed Kirtland Field, after early Army military pilot Colonel Roy S. Kirtland, and in mid-1942 the Army acquired Oxnard Field. During the war years facilities were expanded further and Kirtland Field served as a major Army Air Forces training installation.

In the months leading up to successful detonation of the first atomic bomb, the Trinity Project, and delivery of the first airborne atomic weapon, the Alberta Project, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Director of Los Alamos Laboratory, and his technical advisor, Hartly Rowe, began looking for a new site convenient to Los Alamos for the continuation of weapons development – especially its non-nuclear aspects. They felt a separate division would be best to perform these functions. Kirtland had fulfilled Los Alamos’ transportation needs for both the Trinity and Alberta projects, thus, Oxnard Field was transferred from the jurisdiction of the Army Air Corps to the U.S. Army Service Forces Chief of Engineer District, and thereafter, assigned to the Manhattan Engineer District. In July 1945, the forerunner of Sandia Laboratory, known as ‘Z’ Division, was established at Oxnard Field to handle future weapons development, testing, and bomb assembly for the Manhattan Engineer District. The District- directive calling for establishing a secure area and construction of ‘Z’ Division facilities referred to this as ‘Sandia Base’ – apparently the first official recognition of the ‘Sandia’ name.

Sandia Laboratory was operated by the University of California until 1949, when President Harry S. Truman asked Western Electric, a subsidiary of American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T), to assume the operation as an ‘opportunity to render an exceptional service in the national interest.’ Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T Corporation, managed and operated the laboratory until October 1993. The United States Congress designated Sandia Laboratories as a National laboratory in 1979. Today, Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) is managed and operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation, and includes government-owned facilities in Albuquerque, New Mexico (SNL/NM); Livermore, California (SNL/CA); Tonopah, Nevada; and Kauai, Hawaii. SNL/NM is headquarters and the largest laboratory, employing more than 6,600 employees, while SNL/CA is a smaller laboratory, with about 850 employees. Tonopah and Kauai are occupied on a ‘campaign’ basis, as test schedules dictate.

Legal issues

On February 13, 2007 a New Mexico State Court found Sandia Corporation liable for $4.7 million in damages for the firing of a former network security analyst, Shawn Carpenter. Mr. Carpenter had reported to his supervisors that hundreds of military installations and defense contractors’ networks were compromised and sensitive information was being stolen – including hundreds of sensitive Lockheed documents on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter project. When his supervisors told him to drop the investigation and do nothing with the information, he went to intelligence officials in the United States Army and later the Federal Bureau of Investigation to address the national security breaches. When Sandia managers discovered his actions months later, they revoked his security clearance and fired him.

Technical areas

SNL/NM consists of five technical areas (TA) and several additional test areas. Each TA has its own distinctive operations, however the operations of some groups at Sandia may span more than one TA, with one part of a team working on a problem from one angle, and another subset of the same team located in a different building or area working with other specialized equipment. A description of each area is given below.

TA-I operations are dedicated primarily to three activities – the design, research, and development of weapon systems; limited production of weapon system components; and energy programs. TA-I facilities include the main library and offices, laboratories, and shops used by administrative and technical staff.

TA-II is a 45 acre (180,000 m²) facility that was established in 1948 for the assembly of chemical high explosive main charges for nuclear weapons and later for production scale assembly of nuclear weapons. Activities in TA-II include the decontamination, decommissioning, and remediation of facilities and landfills used in past research and development activities. Remediation of the Classified Waste Landfill which started in March 1998, neared completion in FY2000. A testing facility, the Explosive Component Facility, integrates many of the previous TA-II test activities as well as some testing activities previously performed in other remote test areas. The Access Delay Technology Test Facility is also located in TA-II.

TA-III is adjacent to and south of TA-V [both are approximately seven miles (11 km) south of TA-I]. TA-III facilities include extensive design-test facilities such as rocket sled tracks, centrifuges and a radiant heat facility. Other facilities in TA-III include a paper destructor, the Melting and Solidification Laboratory and the Radioactive and Mixed Waste Management Facility (RMWMF). RMWMF serves as central processing facility for packaging and storage of low-level and mixed waste. The remediation of the Chemical Waste Landfill, which started in September 1998, is an ongoing activity in TA-III.

TA-IV, located approximately 1/2 mile (1 km) south of TA-I, consists of several inertial-confinement fusion research and pulsed power research facilities, including the High Energy Radiation Megavolt Electron Source (Hermes-III), the Z Facility, the Short Pulsed High Intensity Nanosecond X-Radiator (SPHINX) Facility, and the Saturn Accelerator. TA-IV also hosts some computer science and cognition research.

TA-V contains two research reactor facilities, an intense gamma irradiation facility (using cobalt-60 and caesium-137 sources), and the Hot Cell Facility.

SNL/NM also has test areas outside of the five technical areas listed above. These test areas, collectively known as Coyote Test Field, are located southeast of TA-III and/or in the canyons on the west side of the Manzanita Mountains. Facilities in the Coyote Canyon Test Field include the Solar Tower Facility (34.9623 N , 106.5097 W), the Lurance Canyon Burn Site and the Aerial Cable Facility.

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Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Laboratories (ATL) is a department of Lockheed Martin, in the Electronic Systems business unit, located in Cherry Hill, NJ, with approximately 220 employees. Other locations include Westlake Village, CA, Atlanta, GA, and Arlington, VA. ATL specializes in advanced research and development and is analogous to the Lockheed Martin Aeronautics division’s famous Skunk Works.

Laboratories

• Advanced Concepts Laboratory
• Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
• Contextual Systems Laboratory
• Distributed Systems Laboratory
• Embedded Processing Laboratory
• ISX Laboratory

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Lockheed Martin Systems Integration – Owego (LMSI) is a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, in the Electronic Systems sector, located in Owego, New York, with approximately 4,000 employees. It was formerly known as Lockheed Martin Federal Systems. Originally founded as IBM Federal Systems in 1957, it was sold to Loral Corporation in 1994. Subsequently, Lockheed Martin acquired Loral’s electronic systems and systems integration business in 1996.

Projects

• Electronics upgrades to the B-52 Stratofortress and A-10 Thunderbolt II
• Provisioning of optical scanners and tracking materials to the United States Postal Service.
• Airport scanners for detecting explosives.

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Lockheed Martin Missiles & Fire Control (LM MFC) is a Lockheed Martin business unit based in the Dallas suburb of Grand Prairie, Texas. The unit’s offensive and defensive arsenal includes air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles, naval rockets and missiles, fire control and sensor systems, fire support systems, missile launchers, missile defense systems, and anti-tank weapons.

LM MFC has approximately 10,600 employees, most split between Orlando, Florida and Grand Prairie. Other major LM MFC facilities are located in Archbald, Pennsylvania; Chelmsford, Massachusetts; East Camden, Arkansas; Horizon City, Texas; Lufkin, Texas; Ocala, Florida; Santa Barbara, California; and Troy, Alabama.

History

The Grand Prairie facility dates back to being a major component of the now defunct LTV Corporation, and later became part of Loral before Loral’s merger with Lockheed Martin.

Programs

Missiles and Fire Control’s most lucrative program is the TADS/PNVS (Target Acquisition Designation Sight, Pilot Night Vision System) program for the AH-64 Apache helicopter. The second generation M-TADS (also known as Arrowhead) is now being fielded to United States Army and foreign customers.

Major Products

• Air and Missile Defense
  • MEADS System
  • PAC-3 Missile
  • THAAD System
• Strike Weapons
  • JASSM
• Tactical Missiles
  • Hellfire Missile
  • Javelin Missile
  • Joint Common Missile
  • Longbow Missile
  • HIMARS
  • ATACMS
  • MLRS
  • Long Range Land Attack Projectile
• Future Combat Systems
  • MULE
• Sensors and Fire Control
  • Sniper targeting pod for U.S. Air Force aircraft

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Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems & Sensors (LM MS2) is a Lockheed Martin business segment, headquartered in Washington, DC. Until October 2008 MS2 was headquartered in Moorestown, New Jersey, a suburb of Philadelphia. MS2 is a part of Lockheed Martin Electronic Systems sector. MS2 was formerly known as NESS (Naval Electronics and Surveillance Systems). Fred P. Moosally is the current president of MS2.

Current major products of MS2 include the Aegis combat system, the Mk41 Vertical Launching System, the Desert Hawk UAV, the AN/UYQ-70 display system, the AN/UYK-43 and AN/UYK-44 computers, AN/SPY-1 naval RADAR systems, AN/SQQ-89 SONAR system, P-3 Orion mission systems, and tactical avionics for the F-35 Lightning II and the F-16 Fighting Falcon. Products in development include the Integrated Deepwater System Program (in partnership with Northrop Grumman), Medium Extended Air Defense System, and the Littoral Combat Ship.

Business Lines

MS2 consists of the following eight lines of business:

• Coast Guard Systems
• Defense & Surveillance Systems
• Homeland Security Systems
• Littoral Ships & Systems
• Radar Systems
• Surface & SBMD (Sea-based Missile Defense) Systems
• Tactical Systems
• Undersea Systems

Locations

MS2 has approximately 13,000 employees, with major locations in

• Akron, OH
• Baltimore, MD
• Eagan, MN
• Manassas, VA
• Moorestown, NJ
• Ottawa, ON
• Syracuse, NY

Other locations include Marion, MA; Middletown, RI;Clearwater, FL; Riviera Beach, FL; Mitchel Field, NY; Montreal, QC; and San Diego, CA.