Raytheon Company

Raytheon

Entrance to Raytheon's secure headquarters complex in Waltham
Type	Public
Traded as	: RTN S&P 100 Component S&P 500 Component
Industry	Aerospace and defense
Founded	Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States (1922)
Founder	Vannevar Bush Laurence K. Marshall Charles G. Smith
Headquarters	Waltham, Massachusetts, United States
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Thomas A. Kennedy (Chairman/CEO)
Revenue	US$23.247 billion (2015) US$22.826 billion (2014)
Operating income	US$3.013 billion (2015) US$3.179 billion (2014)
Net income	US$2.074 billion (2015) US$2.179 billion (2014)
Total assets	US$29.281 billion (2015) US$27.716 billion (2014)
Total equity	US$10.330 billion (2015) US$9.721 billion (2014)
Number of employees	61,000 (February 2016)
Website	www.raytheon.com

The Raytheon Company is a major U.S. defense contractor and industrial corporation with core manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. It was previously involved in corporate and special-mission aircraft until early 2007. Raytheon is the world's largest producer of guided missiles.

Established in 1922, the company reincorporated in 1928 and adopted its present name in 1959. The company has around 63,000 employees worldwide and annual revenues of approximately US$25 billion. More than 90% of Raytheon's revenues were obtained from military contracts and, as of 2012, it was the fifth-largest military contractor in the world. As of 2015^[update], it is the third largest defense contractor in the United States by defense revenue.

Raytheon's headquarters moved from Lexington, Massachusetts, to Waltham, Massachusetts, in 2003. The company was previously headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from 1922 to 1928, Newton, Massachusetts, from 1928 to 1941, Waltham from 1941 to 1961, Lexington from 1961 to 2003, and back to Waltham from 2003 onwards.

In 1922, two former Tufts engineering college roommates Laurence K. Marshall and Vannevar Bush, along with scientist Charles G. Smith, founded the American Appliance Company in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Its focus, which was originally on new refrigeration technology, soon shifted to electronics. The company's first product was a gaseous (helium) rectifier that was based on Charles Smith's earlier astronomical research of the star Zeta Puppis. The electron tube was christened with the name Raytheon ("light of/from the gods") and was used in a battery eliminator, a type of radio-receiver power supply that plugged into the power grid in place of large batteries. This made it possible to convert household alternating current to direct current for radios and thus eliminate the need for expensive, short-lived batteries.