Innovation in a Cold [War] Climate: Engineering Peace with the American Military–Industrial Complex

Abstract

On January 8, 2008, executives at MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA), a systems engineering firm centered in Vancouver, British Columbia, triggered a political firestorm by announcing that, subject to regulatory approval by the governments of Canada and the United States, shareholders had approved the sale of the firm's space business to Alliant Techsystems (ATK), an aerospace company and manufacturer of land mines, cluster bombs, and missiles headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Daniel Friedmann, MDA's chief executive since 1995, argued the sale would “allow the company to focus management and financial resources exclusively on its rapidly growing information products business,” particularly the firm's property-information systems for those “involved in real estate-related transactions such as the buying, selling, conveyancing, mortgage financing, and insurance of properties.”