OXNARD : 150 to Lose Jobs in Plant Closure

An Oxnard electronics company has announced it will close by the end of the year, taking 150 jobs out of Ventura County.

Statham Transducer will consolidate its operations with Gulton Servonic in Costa Mesa, Statham President Stephen Pirrone said. Both companies are owned by Mark IV Transducer Corp. in Amherst, N.Y.

Executives made the decision to close the Oxnard plant with regret, Pirrone said.

“The economic conditions associated with the downturn in the aerospace and defense markets has forced this decision,” Pirrone said in a prepared statement released Thursday.

Some Statham workers will be offered employment at the Costa Mesa plant, but others will lose their jobs, Pirrone said. The company produces electronic equipment used in weapons, space vehicles and commercial airliners, officials said.

Statham is the latest in a series of high technology firms to leave Ventura County in recent years.

More than 4,000 employees in the defense and aerospace industries have lost jobs in Ventura County over the last three years because of defense spending cuts and corporate restructurings.

Northrop Corp. in Newbury Park and Raytheon Co. in Oxnard have both closed plants since 1990, and Litton Industries abandoned plans last year to move a 1,500-employee division into its Moorpark navigation-equipment plant. Instead, Litton relocated 600 jobs to a Woodland Hills plant.