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1997 – TODAY
A Fort Wayne product that is no longer Fort Wayne's: The sonobuoy business Magnavox built in Fort Wayne from the 1950s did not follow the rest of the company into Raytheon. When Raytheon took over the Hughes defense operations, it spun the sonobuoy operation off as Under Sea Systems Inc. — USSI — seated not in Fort Wayne but in Columbia City, in Whitley County, and in 1998 Raytheon sold USSI to the British defense group Ultra Electronics. USSI operates in Columbia City today as Ultra's sonobuoy and acoustic-sensing house. It is printed here at its true size and in its true place: a descendant of Fort Wayne's Magnavox, twenty miles west, outside this history's city ground. Any account that lists Ultra Electronics among Fort Wayne's technology employers is reaching across a county line; the Fort Wayne claim to the sonobuoy line ends at the spin-off, and this record keeps it there.
Sources:
- Magnavox, company record — the Raytheon spin-off of the sonobuoy operation to form Under Sea Systems Inc. (USSI) in Columbia City, Indiana; the 1998 sale to Ultra Electronics; USSI today a wholly owned Ultra subsidiary manufacturing water and acoustic sensing and communications devices.