Boeing will relocate the leadership of its Defense, Space and Security Group from St. Louis to a Washington, D.C., suburb to be closer to the Pentagon and the seat of the federal government. Fifty or more executives and staff will relocate, the manufacturer confirmed on December 13.

About a dozen executives, including group president and CEO Leanne Caret, will move to Boeing’s regional headquarters facility in Crystal City, Va., early next year, with the others to follow. That facility, which opened in 2014, lies just across the Potomac River from downtown Washington and is situated within a few minutes’ drive of the Pentagon.

“We’re making the move to deepen our engagement with customers in the Pentagon and NASA, as well as key decision makers on the Hill and in the administration,” Boeing said in response to an AIN inquiry.

Some 14,000 employees will remain in the greater St. Louis area, where Boeing based its defense operations after acquiring McDonnell Douglas in 1997. They work on programs including the F/A-18, F-15, JDAM (joint direct attack munition) and Boeing’s new BTX, a candidate for the U.S. Air Force’s T-X training jet competition. U.S. Navy procurement of the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and its E/A-18G Growler derivative as well as foreign military sales of F/A-18s to Kuwait and F-15s to Qatar could extend those respective production lines into the next decade. The St. Louis-area facilities also support composite work for the new 777X widebody airliner.

In November, Boeing announced that it would consolidate some of its defense group facilities, reducing its overall footprint by about 4.5 million square feet by 2021. The manufacturer said about 1,600 positions in Huntington Beach, Calif., will relocate to El Segundo, Long Beach and Seal Beach in that state; another 500 will move to St. Louis and 400 to Huntsville, Ala. Boeing sites employing more than 300 people in El Paso, Texas, and Newington, Va., will close.

Boeing Defense revealed the decision to relocate its corporate offices a week after President-elect Donald Trump in a tweet called for cancelling the new Air Force One—a heavily modified Boeing 747-8 airliner—because the costs of building two ships “are out of control.” Trump’s December 6 pronouncement caused a temporary dip in Boeing’s share price on the New York Stock Exchange; similarly a December 12 tweet critical of the F-35 Lightning II caused manufacturer Lockheed Martin’s stock to falter. In media reports, Boeing denied that its corporate relocation is a response to Trump’s action.