Lockheed Martin UK has announced the appointment of Ron Abbott as Chief Operating Officer, effective April 1.

In this new position, Abbott will work in partnership with LMUK's new Chief Executive, Stephen Ball, who took up the position last month following the announcement of the planned retirement of the incumbent, Ian Stopps.

Abbott will focus on programme delivery and providing access to the organisation's huge bank of technologies and resources while Ball leads the development of Strategy and is responsible for running the LMUK business.

Commenting on this new appointment Stephen Ball said, "I am delighted that Ron Abbott will be working in partnership with me as we take LMUK forward. We have worked together for a number of years already. Ron's knowledge of the wider Lockheed Martin Corporation, and his experience working with the senior leadership, will be invaluable. We created LMUK as a single UK entity in response to our customers' wishes; Ron's appointment is the now next stage of that strategy, enabling us to ensure that our customers, team partners and suppliers are also able to benefit from the full power of the total Lockheed Martin Corporation."

Ron Abbott joins LMUK from the company's Orlando, Florida-based Missiles and Fire Control (MFC) business where, until recently, he was executive vice president. Abbott brings to this new role considerable knowledge of the LMUK operation and the MoD customer organisation through his responsibility for programmes such as Javelin and Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (GMLRS) and through his position as the senior MFC executive responsible for the LMUK INSYS business.

Speaking on his new role, Abbott said: "I am really looking forward to this new opportunity. I have been fortunate to have spent a great deal of my career working on UK programmes and with our MOD customers. I think this experience, coupled with my knowledge of the wider Corporation, is going to be very useful as we continue to grow this organisation."

Lockheed Martin UK, a unit of Lockheed Martin Corporation, is a leader in systems integration working on major programmes spanning the aerospace, defence and civil sectors. The organisation works with more than 100 business partners and employs over 1700 people at sites across the UK. Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin is a global security company that employs about 146,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The corporation reported 2008 sales of $42.7 billion.