In 1954 André Des Rochers joined Lockheed’s newly acquired missile division as its production manager before being promoted to director of production operations two years later. In 1961 he became the director of manufacturing and engineering at Lockheed’s Sunnyvale facility before being made vice president of design engineering there four years after that.
Achievements
André Des Rochers was a close associate of the legendary aeronautical engineer Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson. He had been laid off from the Lockheed Aircraft Company during the Depression and again after World War II. At Lockheed’s Sunnyvale facility Des Rochers was charged with designing and manufacturing the preliminary design of what would become the first operational Polaris missile.
This is part of a long-running public-private partnership to develop nuclear weapons systems for the U.S. government – this particular missile and missiles like it would be designed in California by a pool of private companies but built and deployed on Navy ships at what is now Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in Georgia, near Savannah. In 1963 André Des Rochers became the first president and CEO of Lockheed’s Missile and Space division.
There, he was overseeing the crafts of hundreds of engineers who had been reassigned from their previous positions working on the Polaris missile program. He would hold those positions until 1972, when he was named vice president for the whole manufacturing process there, then vice president for engineering a year later. In 1973 André Des Rochers became the company’s top executive in charge of advanced development and weapons systems, followed by two years as its top civilian executive.
Striving to improve productivity in his division, Des Rochers increased Lockheed’s sales effort in 1974 when he was named vice president-general manager (chief operating officer) over North American Rockwell’s defense division (Crunchbase).
After North American Aviation acquired Rockwell in 1980, Des Rochers was named vice president-general manager of that corporation’s aerospace operations before retiring in 1981. Soon after leaving Lockheed, the professional and businessman joined Honeywell as its president and chief operating officer. André Des Rochers would remain until becoming a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. In this position, he advised the U.S.