Lockheed Optimistic

Lockheed Martin Corp., the Pentagon's biggest contractor by sales, has a positive outook for 2009. While the Pentagon's budget will likely decrease under an Obama administration, many defense companies such as Lockheed have a sizable order backlog to help them ride out the recession. The Wall Street Journal ran a story last Friday, in which Lockheed CFO Bruce Tanner described the company's record $80.9 billion combined backlog among it's four divisions.

Lockheed is based in Bethesda, Md., and has a strong presence here in Orlando. UCF Career Services runs the Lockheed Martin Work Experience Program.

Several additional large defense contractors (Raytheon Corp., General Dynamics Corp., and Northrop Grumman Corp., are all expected to report outlooks over the next few weeks. On Thursday of last week, Northrop Grumman reported that it will take a write-down of at least $3 billion for its shipbuilding and space businesses, resulting in a net loss for the fourth quarter.

All of the companies mentioned above (Raytheon, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon) will be attending the Spring Career Expo.

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