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Already, with the age of aerospace barely begun, the 200-year-old Industrial Revolution has given way to a Technological Revolution that is working profound changes on U.S. society and the U.S. economy. In less than a decade, aerospace has grown into a $14 billion-a-year industry serviced by 50,000 suppliers who employ men and materials from, just about every city, village and hamlet in the nation. Newspapers bulge with want ads for stress analysts, aerothermodynamicists, flutter and vibration specialists. New plants are being built not where the rivers or railroads are, but where the brains are. Around Boston, a bustling aerospace hub has risen where only pig farms were a few years ago. For Florida, aerospace is doing today what oil did for Texas in Spindletop days. Aerospace also underwrites the economy of southern California, has created new manufacturing bases in Denver and Dallas, Phoenix and Minneapolis.
Aerospace is a cerebral industry where Saturn stands for a product as well as a target; where "Aeronutronic" is not a nervous disorder but a new branch of the Ford Motor Co.; where one week's output from a major factory can be shipped in the tail end of a station wagon, and a cupful of sensitive components, such as microwave diodes, is worth $150,000. It makes men talk in superlatives. Says E. V. Huggins, executive committee chairman of Westinghouse Electric Corp.: "The aerospace business is the most mind-stretching, imagination-producing, forward-looking activity a company can engage in."
The Ultimate Sophistication. It makes extraordinary demands upon management. "We have experienced a tremendous explosion of technology," says Northrop's Tom Jones, "and the country's need now is to perfect the management skills to handle it." The job of the managers is to convert the demands of the generals and the discoveries of the scientists into working hardware—and none has done it better than Tom Jones himself. In the eyes of the Pentagon, Jones is the bright young star of the aerospace industry.
As much a thinker as a manager, sophisticated Tom Jones can design airplanes, speak fluent Portuguese, pick his way knowledgeably among Burgundy vintages, and discourse easily on modern French paintings (which he collects) or the problems that man will run into on the moon. He is also a down-to-earth executive. Rising in just 5½ Years from a $15,000-a-year engineer to chief executive officer with a current annual income of $135,000. Jones has reshaped Northrop from a lagging prime contractor to a broad-based "supplier of suppliers," whose profit rate of 3.2% on last year's sales of $267 million was the best among airframe makers. Where Northrop just a few years ago had only two major projects—one plane and one missile—it now works on more than 70, ranging from missile launchers to devices to make a man comfortable in space flight and to bring him back alive.