Lockheed seeking partners for global energy and food security projects

The Wall Street Journal reported in November that Lockheed said it has learned its lesson and is sticking to smaller deals, seeking partners and targeting products that leverage global macroeconomic themes such as energy and food security and population growth.

            Bruce Tanner, Lockheed’s finance chief, told the Journal many of its traditional commercial projects have military applications or may help support defense sales efforts in specific regions.

            But in the last couple years Lockheed has worked with Hawaii-based Kampachi Farms LLC and the Illinois Soybean Association to develop open-ocean fish pens, intended to enable fish farming with less environmental and other drawbacks of inland or coastal farms.

            Lockheed developed the communications and remote control system for the offshore pens, which operators on land can use to feed the fish and clean the pens floating on ocean currents.

— Erich Luening