Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin is the world's largest defense contractor, a position it has held for years by delivering some of the most advanced military technology on the planet. The company was born on March 15, 1995, when Lockheed Corporation and Martin Marietta merged in a $10 billion deal that combined two storied aerospace lineages. Lockheed's roots go back to 1912, when the Lockheed brothers founded the Alco Hydro-Aeroplane Company in San Francisco, while Glenn L. Martin started his own aircraft company the same year in Los Angeles. Together, these predecessor firms produced iconic aircraft like the P-38 Lightning, the Constellation airliner, and the U-2 spy plane, as well as the Viking and Mariner space probes.

Today, Lockheed Martin operates through four business segments: Aeronautics, Missiles and Fire Control, Rotary and Mission Systems, and Space. Its flagship product is the F-35 Lightning II, a fifth-generation stealth fighter that accounts for a huge chunk of revenue and serves as the backbone of U.S. and allied air power. Other major programs include the C-130J Hercules transport, the Black Hawk helicopter family (via Sikorsky, acquired in 2015), the THAAD missile defense system, and the Orion spacecraft that will carry astronauts to the Moon under NASA's Artemis program. The legendary Skunk Works division, founded in 1943, continues to develop classified aircraft and bleeding-edge concepts like the X-59 supersonic demonstrator.

The company is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C., and employs roughly 121,000 people across more than 340 facilities worldwide. It maintains over 13,000 active suppliers, including businesses in every U.S. state and 909 suppliers across 52 countries. For fiscal year 2025, Lockheed Martin reported revenue of $75.05 billion, operating income of $7.73 billion, and total assets of $59.84 billion. Its market capitalization sits around $116 billion. The company has won the Collier Trophy six times, including in 2001 for the F-35B's LiftFan propulsion system and in 2018 for the Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System, a technology that has saved dozens of pilots' lives. [edit]