Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!military
From: ricko@rosevax.Rosemount.COM (Rick O'Brien)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Northrop F-20...
Message-ID: <6748@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 20 May 89 03:17:25 GMT
References: <6547@cbnews.ATT.COM> <6707@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
Organization: Rosemount Inc., Eden Prairie, MN
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From: ricko@rosevax.Rosemount.COM (Rick O'Brien)

In article <6707@cbnews.ATT.COM> tshaffer@ads.com (Tom Shaffer) writes:
>
>
>From: tshaffer@ads.com (Tom Shaffer)
>
>[interesting stuff on F-20 deleted]  No company in
>history went so far out on a limb ($1 billion), investing
>its own money to build a DOD product.  It would have been
>nice to see a new trend start, where companies invested some of 
>their own money in starting up and developing products.  
>You can bet no company will ever make the same mistake Northrop made. 
>Lesson- only spend the gov'ts money, don't ever risk any of your
>own.  
>				-- Tom Shaffer --
Just about every Request For Quote I have seen in the last few years
asks for an "investment" on the part of the bidder.  My company is only
a subcontractor, not a prime, and we are still investing lots of bucks
on programs we may or may not get.  While we are not investing $1 billion
the amounts are still substantial for a company of our size.  Also, the
new and improved :-{ govm'nt regs make it increasingly difficult to 
recover any "investment."  We still do defense work, so we must make
money on it, but it is not an easy way to make money.  ( At one time
our company decided to no-bid any more NASA contracts but eventually 
reconsidered, whether for more money or the 'prestige' of the space
program I don't know.)

Rick O'Brien