AEROSPACE: The industry that built the South Bay

NASA pilot Bill Dana watches a Boeing NB-52B carrier aircraft fly overhead after a successful test flight of the Northrop HL-10 lifting body at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Calif., 1969. NASA photo. © The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens Very rarely did someone turn down his offer. Beginning in 1982, Mark Forgea worked as a recruiter for TRW in Redondo Beach. In his search for the best and brightest minds, he had an appealing pitch: a job in an industry that was changing the course of history. The pay was high, the work was intriguing, and the office was a mile from the beach. “I’d take these young people just out of college down to the beach and we’d sit with sunglasses on and we’d get burritos and watch The Strand go by, and it would be the middle of winter and everybody would be in a bathing suit,” Forgea said. “We had perfect weather almost all year round. Plenty of the good life. The promise of the American dream. We hired so many people, so quickly.” The South Bay’s aerospace industry boomed throughout the ‘80s. Local aerospace recruiters competed over the cream of the country’s engineering crop – coveted young talent companies could afford…

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