‘A major, major loss’
Closing of Lockheed Martin plant is end of an era for eastern Baltimore County
When the Glenn L. Martin Co. sprang up in Middle River more than 90 years ago, it helped usher in an era of manufacturing prosperity for eastern Baltimore County.
News that Lockheed Martin, the company’s successor, plans to leave the plant within two years means the community is losing an icon, residents say.
“It’s very sad when you have something that’s been around for nine decades and all of a sudden what we knew growing up is not going to be there,” said Paul M. Blitz, a local historian whose late godmother was a “Rosie the Riveter” at the plant.
Lockheed Martin announced that it would end its manufacturing run in Middle River with plans to shutter the 465-employee operation, moving production of its vertical launch systems and other U.S. Navy warship equipment to a plant in New Jersey by the end of 2023.
It’s the latest in a series of closures by eastern county manufacturing giants in the past decade. In 2019, nearly 300 fulltime employees were laid off as General Motors decommissioned its White Marsh plant. And in 2012, Bethlehem Steel’s closure ended a legacy of Sparrows Point steelmaking dating back more than a century.
Lockheed has signaled that it intends to retain ownership of the Middle River site and is seeking prospective tenants.
The Glenn L. Martin Co. transformed the area, bringing jobs that sparked a housing boom. An Iowa native, Martin purchased more than 1,200 acres in Middle River, opening the first production facility in 1929.
His company produced more than 11,000 planes by 1960, including Navy seaplanes and B-26 Marauder bombers
used in World War II, according to the Glenn L. Martin Maryland Aviation Museum, a small museum located at Martin State Airport, which was built originally to serve the Martin plant. The company ventured into missiles, space and electronics manufacturing in the 1950s and stopped producing aircraft in 1960.
At its height during World War II, Glenn L. Martin employed some 53,000 people. It founded communities such as Aero Acres and Stansbury Estates to house its workers.
In 1961, the company merged with American-Marietta Corp. to form Martin Marietta. Lockheed Martin was formed in 1995 when Martin Marietta merged with Lockheed.
Growing up in the 1960s, “your grandfather or your uncle or your brother or your father were either working at Sparrows Point, GM or Martin’s,” said County Councilwoman Cathy Bevins, a Democrat whose district includes Middle River.
Bevins’ husband worked at the Martin Marietta plant manufacturing long-range Patriot and cruise missiles in the 1980s, she said.
“We have a connection there,” she said. “Many, many people do in the area.”
But it isn’t just about the jobs. It’s also the end of strong relationships that have grown between the defense manufacturer and surrounding neighborhoods, said Jim Hock, president of the Bowleys Quarters Improvement Association, a neighborhood that abuts the industrial site.
Lockheed, he said, works with students in Seneca Elementary School’s Science, Technology Engineering and Math program, hosting an on-site community garden for the school. And the company is working to repair the bulkhead of a private boat ramp owned by a 91-year-old Bowleys Quarters resident.
Company officials also have kept nearby residents in the loop about pollution cleanup efforts the company is required to perform at the Middle River complex and Martin State
Airport under an administrative consent order with the Maryland Department of the Environment.
The company’s departure will be “a major, major loss” to the area, Hock said.
Most of Lockheed Martin’s 465 workers will be offered a chance to relocate or telework, with the plant winding down operations between March and June 2023, the company said.
Most of the jobs would be transferred to facilities in New Jersey, while 140 people will be asked to telework, allowing them to stay in Maryland.
The defense contractor also is closing a plant in Marion, Massachusetts, by October next year and relocating hundreds of jobs and its rotary and mission systems operations from Marion to Syracuse, New York.
Blitz, historian for the Heritage Society of Essex and Middle River, said the news was shocking for many in the area.
“This is unfortunately a sign of the times, where we’re no longer a manufacturing
giant anymore,” he said.
From 2010 to 2019, the number of total private-sector jobs in Baltimore County grew by 14%, while the number manufacturing jobs declined by 6%, according to Richard Clinch, executive director of the University of Baltimore’s Jacob France Institute.
“There aren’t a lot of jobs for these people to find comparable work” Clinch said. “Maryland is really no longer a manufacturing state, despite Baltimore’s history.”
But the county’s loss hasn’t happened in isolation, given the national decline in manufacturing, he said.
Clinch said that “manufacturing in Maryland has many struggles,” including the high cost of real estate and labor. However, as the state lost traditional manufacturing, it did well in more high-tech manufacturing, such as medical devices.
Bevins said that Lockheed officials are in discussions to lease the Middle River facility to ST Engineering, a Singapore-based global aerospace and engineering company that acquired the neighboring Middle River Aircraft Systems in 2019 for $506 million. The renamed Middle River Aerostructure Systems, which makes jet engine parts, was formed in 1998 when General Electric bought part of the former Martin operation in Middle River from Lockheed.
A Lockheed spokeswoman declined to comment on Bevins’ account. Officials at ST Engineering could not be reached for comment.
Lockheed’s announced departure from the Middle River plant comes as efforts to revitalize the area around Glenn L. Martin State Airport are ramping up.
In December, Baltimore County received a federal transit-oriented development designation — meant to incentivize commercial, residential and entertainment uses within a half-mile of a transit station — for the area around the MARC commuter train station on the airport’s north side.
That designation will support plans by Blue Ocean, a Baltimore-based real estate firm, to redevelop a 1.9 million-square-foot building once operated Martin into Aviation Station, a project that would include an indoor sports facility, a Tru by Hilton hotel, and apartment and retail space at the intersection of White Marsh and Eastern boulevards.
The property was included as part of an Opportunity Zone in 2019, a federal designation that gives developments a break on capital gains taxes for new investment in such zones.
It also sits in a Baltimore County Enterprise Zone.
Because of those redevelopment efforts, Sandy Marenberg, director of development for Blue Ocean, said there should be a county-funded study and community input on potential future uses of the Lockheed properties, if Lockheed decides to sell its property.
“Just because a building is industrial today doesn’t mean it should be industrial tomorrow,” he said. “It may have better uses that meet the needs of that community being something else.”
This time a year ago, the Maryland men’s basketball team put a bow on one of its best regular seasons under coach Mark Turgeon, beating Michigan in front of a packed Xfinity Center crowd to clinch a share of the Big Ten regular-season title, the program’s first since joining the conference in 2014.
Fast forward to Sunday and the stakes weren’t as dire in the regular-season finale, but still clear: Senior Night with family in attendance for the first time all season. The opportunity to finish tied for sixth with Wisconsin and Rutgers after falling to 4-9 in conference play.
The Terps were well on their way to capping an impressive turnaround in the second half of the season but ultimately lost a 16-point lead, including a 14-point advantage in the second half, in a 66-61 loss to Penn State.
“It’s crushing,” Turgeon said.
Here are three takeaways from Maryland’s defeat on Sunday night:
Maryland’s late-game execution has been lackluster.
Throughout the season, Maryland has suffered through extended scoring droughts. And many of its struggles have appeared when the Terps needed a bucket late in a close game.
In a 55-50 loss at Penn State in February that marked the nadir of Maryland’s season, it missed its final 10 field-goal attempts over the last 7:32 of the game. The Terps went scoreless over the final 2:32 and missed their final seven-field goal attempts in a five-point loss to
Northwestern last Wednesday. On Sunday, Maryland missed five of its final six shot attempts and was outscored 30-11 by
Penn State down the stretch in a loss that Turgeon characterized as “devastating” several times.
After the Terps built a 14-point lead in the second half, much of their offense late reverted to isolations by junior guard Eric Ayala, which had mixed success but resulted in a lack of ball or body movement.
“Trying to figure out how to score is 3 a.m. in the morning, not sleeping, trying to figure it out,” Turgeon said. “It’s been a yearlong thing. That’s why we put so much emphasis into defense. … Our offense was good enough tonight to win. We make those front end one-and-ones and we guard the way we’re supposed to guard, we should still win the game.
“We were trying to get Eric downhill,” Turgeon added of the late-game philosophy. “Eric was the one guy that could get downhill. … They did a good job of guarding him. They zoned off a couple guys. And they switched everything. And that makes you stand a little bit. And we didn’t react to it well all the time and we lost our confidence a little bit.”
The Terps once again head into tournament play trending in the wrong direction.
Maryland isn’t far removed from its fivegame winning streak, but after consecutive losses against two of the worst teams in the conference to close the season, it might as well be ages ago.
And it highlights a long-standing narrative that has followed Turgeon during his
Maryland tenure: that his teams don’t peak at the right moment.
While the Terps were able to clinch a share of the regular-season title last year, they could have won it outright but lost two straight before beating the Wolverines in the season finale. In 2018-19, Maryland lost two of its last three in the regular season and then was upset as the fifth seed in the Big Ten tournament by 13th-seeded Nebraska.
Now the Terps must try to reverse their fortunes again in the single-elimination conference tournament, where they haven’t won a game since the 2015-16 season.
The difference between seventh and eighth in the Big Ten tournament is significant.
In his postgame comments, Turgeon alluded to the fact that reaching 10-10 in the toughest conference in the country would have been huge, given Maryland fell to 4-9 in early February.
And while a one-game difference in the standings wouldn’t have done much to change the overall perception of the Terps, it sets them on a different course for the conference tournament, which begins Wednesday.
A victory on Sunday would have given Maryland a matchup with 10th-seeded Indiana as the No. 7 seed.
The Terps lost an early-season game on the road to the Hoosiers but senior guard Darryl Morsell sat out with a facial fracture and Maryland had not yet implemented the adjustments that turned its season around.
Instead, the eighth-seeded Terps will play ninth-seeded Michigan State, which beat Michigan, Illinois and Ohio State in the past two weeks to vault itself into consideration for an NCAA tournament bid. Should Maryland beat the Spartans, it would move on to face top-seeded Michigan, which has defeated the Terps by a combined 35 points in two games.
The matchup against Michigan State could ultimately favor Maryland, which beat the Spartans handily just a week ago and would not have to contend with a big man the caliber of Indiana’s Trayce Jackson-Davis.
But Maryland and Michigan State are two teams that seem to be trending in the opposite direction and it doesn’t bode well for the Terps.
Big Ten tournament
MARYLAND VS. MICHIGAN STATE Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis Thursday, 11:30 a.m.
TV: Big Ten Network
Radio: 105.7 FM, 1300 AM
1 7 10 13
14 15 16 18 19 20 21
23
24 26
27 28 30 31 32 33 35
39 41 42
43 47
ACROSS
___ Garden, London district known for diamond trading
Bump fists Form of jazz Ventilate thoroughly Sonic the Hedgehog company Actress de Armas
Insect with powerful hind legs
Mormons, in brief Something Santa makes (and checks twice) Riddle-me-___ ___ Park,
Colo.
Grade downgrade Hand: Sp. Naughty’s opposite Clouseau’s rank: Abbr. Difficulties in life
Jeanette ___, billiards legend nicknamed the Black Widow Objectivist Rand Slow-cooked dish
The Wildcats of the N.C.A.A., informally Rubes, in Canadian lingo
Princes, e.g. Longing Animator’s sheet
Film technique used in old California Raisins ads Novelist Jaffe 48 49 50
51 53 54 55 56 60 61
62 63 64 65 1
2 3 4 5
6 7 8
9 10 11 12 14
Go steady with Plant pouches Wilma’s pal on “The Flintstones” Responses of “the unheard,” per Martin Luther King Jr. Japanese drama Starting
Use a “+” Playing area usually having one of the surfaces seen at the starts of 16-, 28- and 43-Across Rechewed food x or y, in plane geometry
News anchor Mitchell
Mil. mess personnel 1990s Fox dramedy with Charles S. Dutton
Abate
DOWN
Sea ___
(enemy of Popeye)
El Al et al.
Lionel collection 50-50 chance Red-cards, in a soccer match
To the ___ degree Ambivalent reply to “Can you do me a favor?”
It’s “just a number”
Trim Second-least valuable avenue in Monopoly after Mediterranean Batting next Overtakes
Bit of asparagus 17
22 23 25 28
29 31 34 36
37 38
40 41
Financial expert Suze
Winter falls Cereal go-with “Um, all righty” “Laughing” animals
___ Deion (onetime football nickname)
Tiny bit
Until now
Trips to support conservation Not paying a cent, as a tenant
Leave rolling in the aisles Containing tin Dinosaur in Super Mario World 43 44
45 46
47 50 52 57 58 59
Once-popular place to store music
In bed after an injury, say
Quarreling Trash cans on computer screens, e.g Covers again, as a lawn
Skin problem portmanteau Old TV’s “___ Search”
Prefix with skeleton Pizzeria owner in “Do the
Right Thing” Amy who wrote “The Joy Luck Club”
ANSWER TO YESTERDAY’S PU
LE
Annual subscriptions are available for the best of Sunday crosswords from the last 50 years: 1-888-7-ACROSS.
Online subscriptions: Today’s puzzle and more than 2,000 past puzzles, nytimes.com/crosswords ($39.95 a year).
Share tips: nytimes.com/wordplay.
Crosswords for young solvers: nytimes.com/ learning/xwords. 3/9/21