Pico Rivera highlight
Historic industrial
From the Ford Motor Company assembly plant that opened in 1957 to Northrop Grumman's B-2 stealth bomber production facility, Pico Rivera shaped aerospace and automotive manufacturing in post-war America.
Pico Rivera's industrial heritage begins with the Ford Pico Rivera Assembly Plant, which opened in 1957 on farmland that had been cleared for post-war suburban expansion. The plant operated for 23 years, producing over 1.4 million vehicles including the Ford Falcon, Ford Thunderbird, and Ford LTD, making it a major regional employer and anchor of the city's economy. Ford workers lived in the surrounding neighborhoods, sent children to local schools, and built their own houses—creating a cycle of employment and community growth that defined the 1960s and 1970s.
In 1981, Northrop Grumman purchased the former Ford site and began operations that would transform it into one of the most significant aerospace manufacturing facilities in the country. This became the primary production site for the B-2 stealth bomber, with component design, manufacturing, and support operations employing 12,000 to 13,000 workers at its peak in the mid-1990s. The facility played a critical role in Cold War defense strategy and American aerospace innovation, until Northrop Grumman closed the site in 2001, and the property was eventually redeveloped as Pico Rivera Town Center.
Industrial work built Pico Rivera, and the people who worked in those plants—assembling cars, designing stealth aircraft, supporting their families—needed protection for those families if something happened to them. That protection still matters. A term life policy for 20 years, when most children are dependent and most mortgages are largest, is the same principle that guided workers in the 1950s and 1990s: ensuring that the investment you've made in your family and home continues.