The name was adopted in 1911 when Chevron built its second refinery, El Segundo, which is Spanish for "the Second".[19] This refinery is controversial for receiving some of their crude oil from the Amazon region of South America - more than 5,000 barrels per day.[20] In 1928 William Mines, an immigrant from Canada, leased land for a flying field.[21] In 1930, Los Angeles Municipal Airport, later Los Angeles International Airport, opened north of El Segundo; its presence led to the concentration of aerospace and aviation-related firms in the El Segundo area.[19]
Many large aerospace companies have facilities in El Segundo, including Boeing, Raytheon,[22] Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Wyle Laboratories, the Aerospace Corporation, and Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings. The last two are headquartered there. It is also home to the Los Angeles Air Force Base and the Space and Missile Systems Center, which is responsible for space-related acquisition for the military. In addition to the Chevron oil refinery, El Segundo is located next to the Hyperion sewage treatment plant[23] and the El Segundo power plant.
The El Segundo power plant is operated by the American energy company NRG. In an effort to combine sustainable and environmentally friendly techniques with fossil power generation, NRG was to create a new combined cycle power island, providing power for 240,000 households. The new power plant, slated to go online in 2013, was to use two generators: a Siemens gas turbine[24] and an additional steam turbine. Natural gas drives the gas turbine, while the hot exhaust gases generate steam for the steam turbine. The efficiency of the power plant will be increased up to 58%. A huge environmental advantage of this type of power plant is that in combustion, natural gas generates relatively little carbon dioxide compared to other fossil fuels.
The current Boeing factory, the Boeing Satellite Development Center, was originally built by Nash Motors in 1946 and opened in 1948. In 1955, Hughes Aircraft Company purchased the 500,000-square-foot (46,000 m2) building; it was converted to build missiles and also served as a test facility.[25]
Toy manufacturer Mattel,[26] AT&T Entertainment Hub (formerly DirecTV[27]) direct technology marketing company PCM, Inc., and A-Mark Precious Metals are headquartered there, as well as sporting goods retailer Big 5 Sporting Goods and Stamps.com. Database company Teradata has a research and development facility in El Segundo, as well. The North American headquarters of the Japanese video game company Square Enix are also in the city.