High-flying CSW offers peeks into often-surreptitious world

Smile and wave. Someone — or something — way up high may be watching.

U-2 spy planes have flown over Utah and taken a fair share of photos, as have Northrop Grumman's Global Hawk unmanned vehicles — all in the name of helping L-3 Communications' divisional operation in Salt Lake City do its job better.

Communication Systems-West has installed systems for those aircraft over the years and sometimes has them squeeze off a few shots of the Beehive State, according to Curtis Brunson, CSW's president. Both fly so high — the Global Hawk soars at 65,000 feet — that most folks would have no idea.

"I'd be careful about what you do while you're outside," Brunson joked Tuesday during a presentation to the Rotary Club of Salt Lake at the Salt Palace.

The surreptitious nature of those operations coincides with L-3 flying under the proverbial radar screen for many Utahns. The company's second-largest division, CSW now boasts more than 2,000 employees involved in various military communications, information dissemination and weapons targeting programs.

But the company is becoming a bit more open in discussing its activities, Brunson said. "Five years ago, we could not have had this conversation about what we do."

What it does at former Sperry Corp. facilities is primarily high-end broadband communications systems for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft. The U-2 work was a major program for years, and the company still does $100 million in work on that annually.

Some of CSW's products are on aircraft, while others remain on the ground. "As long as you can see it before the earth curves, that's our line of sight," Brunson said.

The division also manufactures satellite communication equipment, including high-end terminals that can be established in 12 hours or less. It provides satellite links for various unmanned aerial vehicles, works on communications programs based on a variant of the Internet and installs communications systems in missiles, allowing the controller to guide it along its course.

"When we talk about intelligence and surveillance and we talk about how the Iraqis are moving and we're talking about pinpoint and precision bombing, this is a fleet of capabilities that the United States possesses. . . . It gives you a feel for the kind of things that are out there that are making sure we can do things like that pinpoint bombing, because the whole idea, let's be frank, is to extend our power," he said.