Magnavox's defense company — and its Raytheon heir

1951 – TODAY

The Government & Industrial company: The defense half of Magnavox, organised as the Magnavox Government and Industrial Electronics Company, was by 1952 already the majority of the Fort Wayne workforce, and it grew into one of the hundred largest defense contractors of the Cold War. Its Fort Wayne products are named in the defense record: the AN/ARC-164 airborne UHF radio; the AN/SSQ-53 and AN/SSQ-62 series sonobuoys — Magnavox began sonobuoy work in the 1950s and produced the expendable submarine-hunting buoys in the millions; the AN/ALQ-128 electronic-warfare equipment; and the Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System, AFATDS, the Army's fire-support battle-management system. The division's own historians closed its forty-year account (1951–1991) with annual sales above $650 million and more than 7,000 Fort Wayne employees across its legacy — the figures are the company's history's, printed as such. In October 1991 the company took the name Magnavox Electronic Systems Company, headquartered at 1313 Production Road; a 1996 defense-industry survey put its employment at about 3,700.

The ownership chain: Philips, which had held the defense company since 1974 — its stock in a voting trust at the Defense Department's request, the trade record notes, so that it qualified for high-level industrial security — sold it to the Carlyle Group in 1993. Hughes Electronics agreed in September 1995 to buy Magnavox Electronic Systems for $370 million, and when Raytheon acquired Hughes's defense operations in 1997 the Fort Wayne works became Raytheon's. The sonobuoy line was the exception, and it is told in the next entry.

Raytheon in Fort Wayne today: The works continues at 1010 Production Road as a Raytheon engineering and production site. Purdue's 2006 account of the facility names its lines: battle-management systems — the AFATDS lineage — identification systems giving friendly forces secure, positive identification, and the Radios & Terminals unit's tactical communications and waveform work. In October 2024 the Fort Wayne facility stood among four Raytheon sites companywide named to develop the next generation of the Navy's Next Generation Jammer Mid-Band under a $192 million contract. The building's offering memorandum, prepared for its sale with Raytheon as anchor tenant, counts over 450 employees at the site and records a ten-year lease renewal running from July 2023 to June 2033 — the tenant's own commitment, on paper, to a fourth decade on Production Road.

Sources:

1. Daniel Aldred and David Peterson, Magnavox Government and Industrial Electronics Company, 1951–1991: A Legacy of Pride and Excellence (2017), as reviewed in the Journal Gazette, 30 June 2018 — sales above $650 million; more than 7,000 employees across the forty-year legacy; the product families.
2. Forecast International, Defense & Aerospace Companies, Magnavox Electronic Systems Company (archived March 1997) — headquarters 1313 Production Road, Fort Wayne; about 3,700 employees; the 1991 renaming; the Philips voting trust; the Carlyle purchase of 1993; the Hughes agreement of September 1995 at $370 million.
3. Magnavox, company record — the defense products (AN/ARC-164, AN/SSQ-53 and AN/SSQ-62 sonobuoys, AN/ALQ-128, AFATDS); the Hughes acquisition of 1995; the transfer with Hughes's defense operations to Raytheon.
4. Purdue University, news release, 13 January 2006 — the tour of Raytheon, 1010 Production Road: battle-management systems, identification systems, the Radios & Terminals unit.
5. Conexus Indiana, Future Ready (2025), citing Inside INdiana Business, 3 October 2024 — the Fort Wayne Raytheon facility among four companywide to share in the $192 million Next Generation Jammer Mid-Band contract.
6. Offering memorandum, 1010 Production Road, Fort Wayne (Showcase) — Raytheon's 191,123 square feet; over 450 employees; the ten-year lease renewal, 1 July 2023 – 30 June 2033.