Rohr, Inc. is an

aerospace Aerospace is a term used to collectively refer to the atmosphere and outer space. Aerospace activity is very diverse, with a multitude of commercial, industrial and military applications. Aerospace engineering consists of aeronautics and astr ...

manufacturing company based in

Chula Vista Chula Vista (; ) is the second-largest city in the San Diego metropolitan area, the seventh largest city in Southern California, the fifteenth largest city in the state of California, and the 78th-largest city in the United States. The popu ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, south of

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United State ...

. It is a wholly owned unit of the Collins Aerospace division of

Raytheon Technologies Raytheon Technologies Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense conglomerate headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. It is one of the largest aerospace and defense manufacturers in the world by revenue and market capitaliza ...

; it was founded in 1940 by Frederick H. Rohr as Rohr Aircraft. Rohr's main product line are

aerostructure An aerostructure is a component of an aircraft's airframe. This may include all or part of the fuselage, wings, or flight control surfaces. Companies that specialize in constructing these components are referred to as "aerostructures manufacturer ...

s, such as

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power ...

-related components, including engine

nacelle A nacelle ( ) is a "streamlined body, sized according to what it contains", such as an engine, fuel, or equipment on an aircraft. When attached by a pylon entirely outside the airframe, it is sometimes called a pod, in which case it is attached ...

thrust reverser Thrust reversal, also called reverse thrust, is the temporary diversion of an aircraft engine's thrust for it to act against the forward travel of the aircraft, providing deceleration. Thrust reverser systems are featured on many jet aircraft ...

s, and mounting pylons for military and commercial aircraft. It also consults on integrating and managing its designs with the other aircraft systems. Other products include

auxiliary power unit An auxiliary power unit (APU) is a device on a vehicle that provides energy for functions other than propulsion. They are commonly found on large aircraft and naval ships as well as some large land vehicles. Aircraft APUs generally produce 115& ...

s, flight control surfaces, and other aircraft parts.

History

Frederick H. Rohr, creator of the fuel tanks for

Charles Lindbergh Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, and activist. On May 20–21, 1927, Lindbergh made the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris, a distance o ...

's ''

Spirit of St. Louis The ''Spirit of St. Louis'' (formally the Ryan NYP, registration: N-X-211) is the custom-built, single-engine, single-seat, high-wing monoplane that was flown by Charles Lindbergh on May 20–21, 1927, on the first solo nonstop transatlant ...

'', founded Rohr Aircraft Corporation on August 6, 1940 with the help of Reuben H. Fleet after approaching him for a job. The company incorporated as Rohr Corporation in 1969, and changed its name to Rohr Industries, Inc. in 1971. In the 1960s and 1970s, Rohr Industries made a foray into mass transit equipment manufacturing. It manufactured

railcar A railcar (not to be confused with a railway car) is a self-propelled railway vehicle designed to transport passengers. The term "railcar" is usually used in reference to a train consisting of a single coach (carriage, car), with a dri ...

s for Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

, and the first 300 subway cars for the Washington Metro, among others.Rohr will call it quits ''

Railway Age ''Railway Age'' is an American trade magazine for the rail transport industry. It was founded in 1856 in Chicago (the United States' major railroad hub) and is published monthly by Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation. History The magazine's ...

'' June 14, 1976 page 46 It was also the United States license holder of the

Aérotrain The Aérotrain was an experimental Tracked Air Cushion Vehicle (TACV), or hovertrain, developed in France from 1965 to 1977 under the engineering leadership of Jean Bertin (1917–1975) – and intended to bring the French rail network to the c ...

. In 1970 it produced an experimental Aérotrain design, the TACV, and purchased the rights to the Monocab design and turned it into the

ROMAG ROMAG was a personal rapid transit (PRT) system produced by the American company Rohr, Inc. It featured a linear induction motor that was arranged to provide both traction and suspension in a magnetic levitation system. ROMAG was developed from a ...

. In the same year it acquired the

Flxible The Flxible Co. (pronounced "''flexible''") was an American manufacturer of motorcycle sidecars, funeral cars, ambulances, intercity coaches and transit buses, based in the U.S. state of Ohio. It was founded in 1913 and closed in 1996. The co ...

Company, a

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...

manufacturer, which would produce a Transbus design, which evolved into the Model 870 Advanced Design Bus, as well as the later

Flxible Metro The Flxible Metro is a transit bus that was assembled and manufactured by the Flxible Corporation from 1983 until 1995. From 1978 until early-1983, when Flxible was owned by Grumman, the model was known as the Grumman 870, with a Grumman namepl ...

, which addressed all of the shortcomings of the Model 870. Rohr divested itself of, or discontinued those programs by the late 1970s. Rohr Industries became Rohr, Inc. in 1992. It was listed on the

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed ...

under the

ticker symbol A ticker symbol or stock symbol is an abbreviation used to uniquely identify publicly traded shares of a particular stock on a particular stock market. In short, ticker symbols are arrangements of symbols or characters (generally Latin letters ...

RHR, until it merged with the

Goodrich Corporation The Goodrich Corporation, formerly the B.F. Goodrich Company, was an American manufacturing company based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Founded in Akron, Ohio in 1870 as Goodrich, Tew & Co. by Benjamin Goodrich, the company name was cha ...

in 1997 and remained a separately incorporated company as Goodrich Aerostructures. In August 2012,

United Technologies Corporation United Technologies Corporation (UTC) was an American multinational conglomerate headquartered in Farmington, Connecticut. It researched, developed, and manufactured products in numerous areas, including aircraft engines, aerospace systems ...

(UTC) purchased Goodrich Corporation and all its divisions. After the acquisition, UTC created an aerospace systems division, United Technologies Aerospace Systems (UTAS), into which all divisions of Goodrich Corporation and UTC's Hamilton Sundstrand divisions were incorporated as one entity. On 26 November 2018, United Technologies announced the completion of its

Rockwell Collins Rockwell Collins was a multinational corporation headquartered in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, providing avionics and information technology systems and services to government agencies and aircraft manufacturers. It was formed when the Collins Radio Comp ...

acquisition, after which it merged its newly acquired business with UTC Aerospace Systems to form Collins Aerospace. UTC merged with the

Raytheon Company The Raytheon Company was a major U.S. defense contractor and industrial corporation with manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. It was previously involved in corporate and special-mission aircraft unti ...

in April 2020 to form

. Rohr is a wholly owned unit of the Collins Aerospace division of Raytheon Technologies.

Sales and divestitures

UTC sold its UTC Power unit in early 2013 to Oregon-based

ClearEdge Power ClearEdge Power, Inc. was a fuel cell manufacturer focusing on the stationary fuel cell. It was headquartered in South Windsor, Connecticut, U.S. The company employed 225 people as of August 2011. It closed its operations in Connecticut in April ...

. UTC sold the former Goodrich electric power systems to Safran for $400 million. This was a

divestiture In finance and economics, divestment or divestiture is the reduction of some kind of asset for financial, ethical, or political objectives or sale of an existing business by a firm. A divestment is the opposite of an investment. Divestiture is a ...

that was a condition of UTC's 2012 acquisition of Goodrich. Pratt & Whitney's

Rocketdyne Rocketdyne was an American rocket engine design and production company headquartered in Canoga Park, in the western San Fernando Valley of suburban Los Angeles, in southern California. The Rocketdyne Division was founded by North American Avia ...

operations were sold to jet engine maker

GenCorp Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, Inc. is a holding company of Aerojet Rocketdyne, an American manufacturer of rocket, hypersonic, and electric propulsive systems for space, defense, civil and commercial applications. Aerojet traces its origins to the ...

for $550 million in mid-2013. Three former

Hamilton Sundstrand Hamilton Sundstrand was an American globally active corporation that manufactured and supported aerospace and industrial products for worldwide markets. A subsidiary of United Technologies Corporation, it was headquartered in Windsor Locks, Con ...

businesses, Milton Roy, Sullair and Sundyne, were sold to private equity firms

BC Partners BC Partners is a British international investment firm with over $40 billion of assets under management across private equity, credit and real estate in Europe and North America. Its global headquarters are in London. The firm invests across all ...

and

The Carlyle Group The Carlyle Group is a multinational private equity, alternative asset management and financial services corporation based in the United States with $376 billion of assets under management. It specializes in private equity, real assets, and ...

for $3.46 billion.

References

Bibliography

Rohr, Inc. 10-K for July 31, 1997

External links

{{Commons category
Goodrich Aerostructures Group
official site
Rohr Aircraft Memories
1940 establishments in California Aerospace companies of the United States Aircraft component manufacturers of the United States Aircraft engine manufacturers of the United States Companies based in Chula Vista, California Companies based in San Diego County, California Manufacturing companies established in 1940 Rolling stock manufacturers of the United States