For the first time in Star 200's 27-year history, Raytheon Missile Systems is Southern Arizona's largest employer.
This is also the first time a private company has held that title.
The U.S. Army Intelligence Center and Fort Huachuca, about 70 miles southeast of Tucson near Sierra Vista, held the top spot for 23 of the past 26 years, rivaled only occasionally by the University of Arizona, which topped the survey in 2002, 1999 and 1998.
The big change is the result of what you might call new accounting rules for Star 200. The Star is no longer counting contractors, who work at the fort on Army contracts, as employees of the fort. That explains the big drop in the head count, from 13,098 full-time equivalent positions last year to 9,119 positions this year. Nearly 4,300 employees of companies including Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics work at the fort.
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Not everyone likes job growth at the fort. The Center for Biological Diversity sued the Army and other federal agencies for potential damage to the San Pedro River — the habitat of endangered species including a plant called the Huachuca water umbel, the Southwestern willow flycatcher and a fish called the spikedace.
Center policy director Kieran Suckling said that by subtracting contractors, the fort is "playing a shell game with the numbers."
The center recently dropped the fort from the suit when the Army agreed to update its environmental-impact study, which limits the number of people who can work there.
As the fort's numbers dropped in this year's survey, Raytheon's grew.
The company debuted with the Star 200 in 1981 at No. 12, when it was called Hughes Aircraft Co. and had 3,885 full-time equivalents. At the time, Magma Copper was the region's largest private employer. By 1995, the missile plant ranked No. 5 with 7,275 full-time equivalents.
At the end of 2006, the company now called Raytheon Missile Systems had 11,184 full-time-equivalent jobs, representing 188 percent growth in its staff since 1981. The company was also in the midst of a 10-week strike by a union representing about 1,900 hourly workers, who were counted in the survey. The strike ended in January.
Raytheon's growth has been slow and steady, with most of the recent hires being engineers, said company spokesman John B. Patterson. Raytheon Missile Systems also has new missions, including working on homeland security projects, he said.
"Raytheon is proud to partner with the community to strengthen Southern Arizona's economy and to make Tucson a great place to work and live," said Louise Francesconi, president.