Los Angeles Home to Five Fortune 500 Companies

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The mere mention of Los Angeles is enough to make most of us think of the city's wonderful climate, movie stars and the Hollywood sign. Many forget that Los Angeles is a business and manufacturing powerhouse, too. Built around international trade, the entertainment industry, aerospace, technology, oil, fashion and tourism, the L.A. economy makes this city America's largest manufacturing center.

One of the best ways to zero in on the business sectors that make the L.A. economy tick is to take a closer look at the handful of Fortune 500 corporations that make Los Angeles their home Alphabetized according to the business sector they represent, these corporations are Northrop Grumman (aerospace), Occidental Petroleum (energy), Health Net (health care), KB Home (home building) and Reliance Steel & Aluminum (metals).

Here's an overview of each of these five corporations:

Aerospace and defense contractor Northrop Grumman got its start in 1927 in Denver, Colorado, but now calls Los Angeles, California, its home. Northrop Grumman is the third biggest U.S. defense contractor and the number one maker of naval vessels for the U.S. Navy, boasting estimated annual revenues of 30 billion dollars and a global workforce of 120,000 employees. Northrop Grumman's Corporate Headquarters are located at 1840 Century Park East, Los Angeles, California.

Nicknamed "OXY" after its trading symbol on the New York Stock Exchange, Occidental Petroleum is America's fourth largest oil and gas company. Headquartered at 10889 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, OXY employs about 9000 workers at locations in the United States, the Middle East, North Africa and South America. Occidental Petroleum is the biggest Texas oil producer and also California's biggest producer of natural gas.

Health Net, Inc. is a provider of managed health care solutions, including HMO, POS and PPO programs, to nearly 7 million people in all fifty states. Based in Woodland Hills, a district within the city of Los Angeles, Health Net drew national attention in 2007 when a California woman, who claimed the company improperly stopped her care during a course of chemotherapy, sued it. This case is still pending as of this writing.

Originally founded in 1957 as Kaufman & Broad, KB Homes is one of America's biggest homebuilders. KB Homes built homes for more than 37,000 American families in 2005, the last year for which this kind of data was available. Based in Los Angeles, KB Homes has four main divisions within the United States: West Coast (California), Southwest (Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico), Central (Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana and Texas) and Southeast (Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia). KB Homes' Corporate Headquarters are found at 10990 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, California.

A hometown success story, Reliance Steel & Aluminum was established in 1939 at Los Angeles, where it began by manufacturing steel reinforcing bar. Today, the company distributes a complete line of over 60,000 metal products through a network of more than 180 locations in the United States, Belgium, Canada, China and South Korea. Still true to its roots, Reliance manages its global operations from its Corporate Headquarters at 350 South Grand Avenue, Suite 5100, Los Angeles, California.

For more detailed information about the economy of Los Angeles, contact the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce at 350 South Bixel Street, Los Angeles, California.

Matt Paolini is a senior researcher for CityBook, the family-safe Online Yellow Pages, which carries an extensive directory on Los Angeles home designing planning.

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