BETHPAGE, N.Y., Sept. 7, 2004 (PRIMEZONE) -- Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) today reinforced its commitment to help improve national engineering, science and technology education by making a donation of $125,000 to the Long Island Museum of Science and Technology (the Museum). The contribution will help this newest of Long Island museums become a world-class educational center. The company plans to make a similar donation to the Museum next year.
The company presented a check for the donation to Museum officials during ceremonies at the Museum's future site in Garden City, New York.
"Over the years we've donated approximately $1 million in cash and services to Long Island's Cradle of Aviation Museum to help preserve this community's deep, rich aviation history," said Philip A. Teel, an Integrated Systems sector vice president who works in the company's Long Island offices. "Now we build for the future. Northrop Grumman views the Long Island Museum of Science and Technology as a catalyst. It will fire the enthusiasm of our children for the sciences, and inspire them to study and train for future leadership roles in what has come to be known as 'Tech Island.'"
"Northrop Grumman is to be congratulated for taking a critical leadership role in the development of a major science and technology center on Long Island," said Morton L. Certilman, chairman, Board of Trustees, Long Island Museum of Science and Technology. "The Long Island Museum of Science & Technology will be an integral part of our educational landscape as well as a showcase for Long Island scientific innovation, both present and future. Northrop Grumman's place in Long Island's technological legacy is well known, and it is both gratifying and appropriate that this company should be leading the campaign to bring LIMSAT to fruition."
"Northrop Grumman's donation reinforces the importance the company places on community involvement, and particularly support of our students and educational institutions," said Robert Klein vice president for engineering, logistics and technology at the sector's Long Island office, and a member of the Museum's board.
In recent years, added Klein, Northrop Grumman's Long Island business operation has increased its involvement with the engineering departments of several local universities. It has also become a significant supporter of the FIRST Robotics program and has been expanding its high school intern and shadow-day programs.
The Long Island Museum of Science and Technology is a work in progress. Its seeds were planted several ago when the superintendent of the Kings Park, N.Y., schools and its school board offered the Friends of the Long Island Museum of Science and Technology group the use of two classrooms at the R.J. Osgood Administration Center Complex. This preview version of the Museum served as an exhibit development-and-test center, a training center for local students wishing to learn how to be volunteer "explainers" to museum visitors, and a super-resource to area school science and technology programs.
Current plans call for the Museum's main facility to be built next to the Cradle of Aviation museum at Mitchel Center in Nassau County as part of "Museum Row" - a complex of linked museums just west of Nassau Community College that will comprise the Cradle, the Long Island Children's Museum and the Long Island Museum of Science and Technology. A demonstration site for the latter is scheduled to open by the end of 2004 and will be accessible through the existing Cradle of Aviation's Reckson Visitors' Center. Construction of its multi-story permanent museum will begin in about five years later.
Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems is a premier aerospace and defense systems integration organization. Headquartered in El Segundo, Calif., it designs, develops, produces and supports integrated systems and subsystems optimized for use on networks. For its government and civil customers worldwide, Integrated Systems delivers best-value solutions, products and services that support military and homeland defense missions in the areas of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; space access; battle management command and control; and integrated strike warfare.
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