Corporation

1975 · 67146 — Vienna VA: BDM Corporation 1975. Presumed first edition/first printing. Wraps. Good. Cover has some wear and soiling. Includes illustrations. Various paginations approximately 75 pages. Reports authored by key personnel. This is stated as being an unsolicited proposal that was submitted to the U. S. Energy Research and Development Administration Washington D. C. BDM was formerlay Braddock Dunn and McDonald Inc. From Wikipedia: "Braddock Dunn & McDonald later known as BDM then BDM International was a technical services firm founded in 1959 in New York City. Its founders were Dr. Joseph V. Braddock Dr. Bernard J. Dunn and Dr. Daniel F. McDonald who each received a PhD from Fordham University in the Bronx New York.Within a year of its founding the company moved to El Paso Texas to be close to the U.S. Army's Air Defense Center at Fort Bliss Texas the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico and Holloman Air Force Base also in New Mexico. The founders offered their experience in missile guidance applied optics electronic instrumentation and radiation physics to the U.S. Defense Department primarily to the U.S. Army. A few years later the three founders hired Earle Williams an engineer with a degree from Auburn University in Alabama who eventually became President and CEO. He led the company through a time of rapid growth and expansion. Among Williams's most significant decisions was to move BDM to the Virginia suburbs of Washington D.C. a few miles west of the Pentagon. That location offered the company a better opportunity to compete for defense contracts than it could from El Paso. The corporation broadened its client base to include other military services the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other U.S. government organizations. For the rest of its existence as a company it occupied a series of ever-larger office spaces in an unincorporated area known as Tysons Corner Virginia formed by the interchange of the newly-completed Capital Beltway and Virginia Routes 7 and 123. Along with Western Union and Honeywell BDM was one of the first firms to locate in the Westpark section of Tysons Corner occupying buildings on Jones Branch Drive ca. 1978 and Westbranch Drive ca. 1980. The company grew rapidly along with Tysons Corner. In the early 1960s Tysons Corner was a sleepy crossroads but has since grown into a classic "edge city" and a home of many government and military contractors. Williams promoted the area as a suitable place for technology-oriented firms. Tysons Corner and the surrounding towns became the home of many of BDM's competitors including Planning Research Corporation DynCorp International and CACI. Although all competed with BDM in the buildup of defense budgets in the late 20th Century nearly all prospered. For a time the press referred to these companies as "Beltway Bandits " because of their location near mostly Virginia interchanges of the Washington D.C. circumferential freeway. Employees of those companies including BDM President Earle Williams took offense to that term. As the Virginia-based defense contractors lost their independence and were absorbed by large aerospace giants the term fell from use. Although the location of the headquarters of these defense contractors was part of an overall trend of movement to the suburbs beginning in the 1960s BDM played a leading role in the specifics of this movement into the Virginia suburbs of Washington. BDM's executives were also active in the local community. President Earle Williams served as Director of Wolftrap Foundation for the Performing Arts. BDM's Executive Vice President Stanley E. Harrison worked to strengthen the academic programs of George Mason University in Fairfax VA. He later became the Provost of Shenandoah University in Winchester VA. In 1997 BDM was purchased by TRW an aerospace systems and technical services company which in turn was acquired by Northrop Grumman in 2002. Northrop Grumman maintains a major corporate facility in Tysons Corner to this day." BDM Corporation paperback