The story
California Eastern Aviation (1946–1961)
California Eastern Aviation was incorporated in Delaware on January 14, 1946. It operated as a common carrier from then until 1948, flying freight between east and west coasts, one of the largest domestic freight operators of the time. Unfortunately, this was not profitable, and the company entered bankruptcy in May 1948, ceasing common carrier activities and leasing out its aircraft instead, which enabled it to exit bankruptcy in 1950. It then became an uncertificated carrier, flying for the US military. During the 1950s its California Eastern Airways division supported the Korean War, the DEW Line, US activities in the Philippines, French Indochina and maintained personnel in Tokyo, Hawaii, Wake Island, one of the largest such operators. The airline flew both Douglas DC-4s and Lockheed Constellations. In 1959, the carrier received interim certification as a supplemental air carrier at which time it had two divisions (the airline operation and Flight Training) and two subsidiaries, Land-Air and Air Carrier Service Corp. Land-Air held contracts performing instrumentation and R&D activities at White Sands Missile Range. In 1960, California Eastern sold its airline operations to President Airlines.
DynCorp traces its origins from two companies formed in 1946: California Eastern Airways (CEA), an air freight business, and Land-Air Inc., an aircraft maintenance company. California Eastern Airways was founded by a small group of returning World War II pilots who wanted to break into the air cargo business. They were one of the first firms to ship cargo by air, and within a year, the firm was serving both coasts. California Eastern Airways diversified into multiple government aviation and managerial jobs, airlifted supplies for the Korean War, and was responsible for the White Sands Missile Range (a client that DynCorp has retained for 50 years).
In 1951 Land-Air Inc., which implemented the first Contract Field Teams (teams of technicians that maintained military aircraft for the United States Air Force), was bought by California Eastern Aviation Inc. DynCorp still holds the contract 50 years later, maintaining rotary and fixed-wing aircraft for all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces. At this time, revenues for the company reached $6 million.
In 1952 the company, renamed California Eastern Aviation, Inc., merged with Air Carrier Service Corporation (AIRCAR), which sold commercial aircraft and spare parts to foreign airlines and governments.
Dynalectron (1962–1987)
By 1961 California Eastern Aviation needed a new name to reflect the growing and diversifying company. The name "Dynalectron Corporation" was selected from 5,000 employee suggestions. In 1976 Dynalectron established headquarters in McLean, Virginia. Due to its growing size, the company restructured into four main operating groups: Specialty Contracting, Energy, Government Services, and Aviation Services. In the 30 years since the foundation of CEA, Dynalectron had acquired 19 companies in 30 years, had assets of $88 million, maintained a backlog of $250 million, employed 7,000, and had annual sales of $300 million.
In 1964 Dynalectron diversified into the energy services business with the acquisition of Hydrocarbon Research, Inc. Through this acquisition Dynalectron developed a process called H-Coal, which converted coal into synthetic liquid fuels. The work began to attract national attention with the Arab Oil Embargos of the 1970s. By the early 1980s Texaco, Ruhrkohle and Itochu were all marketing Dynalectron's H-Oil process.
Between 1976 and 1981 the company had two public stock offerings and acquired another 14 companies. By 1986 Dynaelectron was one of the largest defense contractors in North America.
DynCorp and expansion (1987–2003)
In 1987 Dynalectron changed its name to DynCorp. In 1988 DynCorp went private to avoid a hostile takeover by Miami financier Victor Posner, via an employee initiative led by Daniel R. Bannister. Bannister, as T. Rees Shapiro wrote in his 2011 obituary, "was paid $1.65 an hour when he joined DynCorp as an electronics technician in 1953," rising to serve as its president and CEO (1985 to 1997).
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In 1994 DynCorp's revenues were approximately $1 billion. In 1997, DynCorp partnered with British company Porton International to form DynPort Vaccine Group. That same year, DynPort was contracted by the Joint Vaccine Acquisition Program (JVAP) of the United States Department of Defense to manufacture 300,000 doses of a new smallpox vaccine for the military.
By the time of his retirement in 2003, Shapiro notes that Bannister "oversaw the acquisition of more than 40 companies… [and] was credited with helping to mold… an aviation services company into a sprawling conglomerate that employed 24,000 people and earned $2.4 billion in annual revenue." As well he "oversaw DynCorp contracts to operate missile test ranges for the Defense Department, develop vaccines for the National Institutes of Health and install security systems in U.S. embassies for the State Department." Shapiro notes that during Bannister's tenure Dyncorp had also "supplied bodyguards to Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide in the 1990s and to Afghan President Hamid Karzai in the early 2000s."
With the reductions in military spending in the 1990s, DynCorp expanded their focus to the growing tech market. It bought 19 digital and network service firms and acquired contracts with the government's information technology (IT) departments. By 2003 roughly half of DynCorp's business came from managing the IT departments of the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, among others. In 1999 DynCorp moved its headquarters to Reston, Virginia.
In December 2000 DynCorp formed DynCorp International LLC, and transferred all its international business to this entity. DynCorp Technical Services LLC continued to perform DynCorp's domestic contracts.
Sale to CSC, IPO, and purchase by Cerberus Capital (2003–2020)
In March 2003 DynCorp and its subsidiaries were acquired by Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) for approximately $914 million. Less than two years later, CSC announced the sale of three DynCorp units (DynCorp International, DynMarine and certain DynCorp Technical Services contracts) to Veritas Capital Fund, LP for $850 million. After the sale, CSC retained the rights to the name "DynCorp" and the new company became DynCorp International.
In 2006 DynCorp International went public on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol
DCP.
On April 12, 2010, DynCorp International announced a conditional deal to be acquired by private equity investment firm Cerberus Capital Management for $17.55 per share ($1 billion). The deal was agreed on 7 July 2010.
In December 2011, the company hired Michael Thibault, former co-chairman and commissioner of the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan (CWC), as vice president of government finance and compliance. In 2011, Dyncorp set a company record with 12,300 new hires, bringing the total number of employees to 27,000.
Acquisition by Amentum (2020–present)
On November 23, 2020, Amentum, a contractor supporting U.S. federal and allied governments, announced that it has closed the acquisition of DynCorp International (due to multiple human trafficking cases), a provider of sophisticated aviation, logistics, training, intelligence and operational solutions in over 30 countries worldwide. The combination has also created one of the largest providers of mission critical support services to government customers, with 34,000 team members in 105 countries around the world.
From Wikipedia’s article on DynCorp, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5