Northrop Taps COO as Kresa’s Successor

Ronald Sugar, Northrop Grumman Corp.’s president and chief operating officer, Wednesday was named to succeed Kent Kresa as the big defense contractor’s chief executive.

The company also disclosed plans to add 2,000 or more jobs to its workforce in Southern California over the next few years, where it’s already one of the largest employers.

Sugar, 54, will become CEO of the Century City-based concern April 1 and will remain president. Kresa, who is stepping down after reaching Northrop Grumman’s mandatory retirement age of 65, will remain a nonemployee chairman until Oct. 1, the company said.

It was widely expected that Sugar would succeed Kresa, who radically transformed Northrop Grumman with a spree of acquisitions in the last decade, including Litton Industries Inc., Newport News Shipbuilding Inc. and, most recently, TRW Inc.

Once best-known for building the B-2 stealth bomber, Northrop Grumman now makes satellites, aircraft carriers, submarines, complex radar systems and other high-technology military systems.

Sugar’s main task will be integrating all of those units and their employees. The company, with $26 billion in annual sales, employs about 120,000 people. They include 24,000 spread across sites in Century City, Redondo Beach, El Segundo, Palmdale and San Diego.

“Our biggest challenge is to execute,” Sugar said in a telephone interview. “We’ve got a wonderful portfolio of technologies, programs and super people.”

He also said Northrop Grumman expected to hire “a couple of thousand” more employees to handle its growing list of defense programs.

“We’re hiring at almost all of our locations in Southern California,” Sugar said.

Sugar was previously Litton’s president and spent nearly 20 years at TRW, including a stint as its chief financial officer. Born in Canada but raised in Hawthorne, Sugar entered UCLA at 17 and received a doctorate in engineering there by 23.

His appointment was announced after financial markets closed. Northrop Grumman’s stock rose $1.50 a share to $93.29 on the New York Stock Exchange.