The nation’s third-largest defense contractor disclosed today that it will be getting a new Chief Executive Officer come March 31. After serving for a decade as Raytheon’s Chairman & CEO, William H. Swanson will be relinquishing the lesser of his titles as the first step in a leadership succession. His hand-picked successor in the CEO’s job is Dr. Thomas A. Kennedy, currently the company’s Chief Operating Officer and formerly head of its Integrated Defense Systems unit. Like Swanson, Kennedy was educated as an engineer — he has a Ph.D. in engineering from UCLA — and has spent most of his adult life working for Raytheon. If everything works out, Kennedy could end up leading the company until the centennial of its founding in 2022. I have written a commentary for Forbes here.
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