Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation
 |
|
| Industry | Automotive and aerospace |
|---|---|
| Fate | Acquired |
| Successor | TRW Automotive, Northrop Grumman and Goodrich Corporation |
| Founded | 1901 |
| Defunct | 2002 |
| Headquarters | Euclid, Ohio / Lyndhurst, Ohio, United States |
|
Key people
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Simon Ramo, Dean Wooldridge |
| Products | Automotive, aerospace and credit reporting |
|
Number of employees
|
122,258 |
| Subsidiaries | CAV, Girling, LucasVarity Automotive & Lucas Aerospace |
| Website | www |
TRW Inc. was an American corporation involved in a variety of businesses, mainly aerospace, automotive, and credit reporting. It was a pioneer in multiple fields including electronic components, integrated circuits, computers, software and systems engineering. TRW built many spacecraft, including Pioneer 1, Pioneer 10, and several space-based observatories. It was #57 on the 1986 Fortune 500 list, and had 122,258 employees. In 1958 the company was called Thompson Ramo Wooldridge, after three prominent leaders. This was later shortened to TRW.
The company’s roots were founded in 1901, and it lasted for more than a century until being acquired by Northrop Grumman in 2002. It helped create a variety of corporations, including Pacific Semiconductors, the Aerospace Corporation, Bunker-Ramo, Experian, and TRW Automotive which is now part of ZF Friedrichshafen. Persons coming from TRW were important to build up corporations like SpaceX.
In 1953, the company was recruited to lead the development of the United States' first ICBM. Starting with the initial design by Convair, the multi-corporate team launched Atlas in 1957. It flew its full range in 1958, and was adapted to fly the Mercury astronauts into orbit. TRW also led development of the Titan missile, which was later adapted to fly the Gemini missions. The company served the US Air Force as systems engineers on all subsequent ICBM development efforts, but TRW never produced any missile hardware because of the conflict of interest. In 1960, Congress spurred the formation of the non-profit Aerospace Corporation to provide systems engineering to the US government, but TRW continued to guide the ICBM efforts.
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Wikipedia