GAITHERSBURG, MD, November 23rd, 1999 -- Lockheed Martin Mission Systems has enhanced its status as an employee-focused company with its leading score in a just-completed assessment of its workforce practices. The company attained a Level 3 rating in the Carnegie Mellon's People Capability Maturity Model (P-CMM), a standard established to assess state-of -the-art workforce practices. It includes such areas as staffing, career development, performance management, training and communications. A Level 3 rating means that a company has reached a level of maturity in which its employees are active participants in decision making and in building their competencies. The rating also indicated that the company maintains an environment that encourages participatory behavior.

The rating for the Lockheed Martin unit follows another recently announced attainment for the corporation in Montgomery County, Md. The corporation was cited last week by the Montgomery Workforce Alliance as a "great place to work" because of its benefits programs and the provisions it makes to allow employees to better balance professional and work life.

Mission Systems last month also attained top ratings in two other capability assessments of its software engineering practices and systems engineering maturity. The company scored a Level 5 rating in the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute (SEI) TM Capability Maturity Model (CMM) TM for Software, becoming the third Lockheed Martin company and one of only a handful in the world to earn the prestigious rating. It also scored a Level a Level 3 assessment in systems engineering against standards jointly developed by the International Council on System Engineering (INCOSE), the SEI and the Electronics Industries Alliance (EIA).

"I think this shows that we don't just talk about the importance of our intellectual assets--we put our beliefs into practice by encouraging employees to become more active and involved participants in shaping their own futures as well as our company's future," said company President Terry Drabant. "We believe that the markets in which we compete demand nothing short of the very best skills and that the way to get there is through identifying those competencies and doing the utmost to allow our employees to develop them. We know we have a lot yet to learn in improving our workforce practices, but it's reassuring to know that we've come as far as we have."

The PCMM assessment was undertaken under the direction of Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute staff who guided a team of company employees in undertaking the two-week long assessment.

The P-CMM model, like all the Carnegie Mellon maturity standards, has five set Levels. Level 2 for the P-CMM is described as "repeatable" and means that organizations have documented practices which are communicated and followed. Level 3, termed "defined" means that practices are tailored to assist in the attainment of business, that they are "institutionalized" in that they are understood and followed by the total organization and that employees have a participatory role in decision making and developing their skills. Only two companies have attained the Level 3 rating using the P-CMM standard, which has only recently been developed, and none have scored higher.

A leader in mission critical systems integration and information operations, Lockheed Martin Mission Systems serves customers including U.S. and international defense and civil government agencies. Mission Systems, a business unit of Lockheed Martin, employs approximately 3,800 and, in addition to Gaithersburg, Md. has major activities at facilities in Colorado, California and Virginia.

Dan Cotta.301/ 240-5844dan.cotta@lmco.com

To learn more about Lockheed Martin Mission Systems, please visit our website at:http://www.lockheedmartin.com/missionsystems