Baker leaves GE after PACS purchase

Baker leaves GE after PACS purchase

Michael Baker has left the former Lockheed Martin Medical Imaging System PACS division that GE Medical Systems acquired last April (

PNN

5/97). Baker joins several other Lockheed Martin systems engineers who have left the Hoffman Estates, IL, division.

GE said it intended to keep the Lockheed Martin unit intact after buying the division and merging it with its Integrated Imaging Solutions PACS business. The unit included Baker, who followed Anthony Lombardo as head of the division after Lombardo left to join GE in 1996.

Those plans have apparently changed. Although some PACS observers have speculated that the departure of Baker and several others is a sign that some Lockheed Martin workers may be chafing under their new owners, GE sees it as a normal occurrence following a corporate acquisition.

A GE spokesperson said the company has probably not moved as quickly as it might like in integrating the former Lockheed Martin unit with its own operations, due to the location of the division's headquarters, which is in the same building as GE rival Siemens. GE has found a new location for the business, however, in Mount Prospect, IL, about 15 miles away from the Hoffman Estates building. The business should begin moving to the Mount Prospect facility in mid-August or early September.