Burnham, 52, former vice chairman at AlliedSignal Corp, has prepared for his new post by spending the past five months as Raytheon's president and chief operating officer. Considered an efficiency expert, he has already left his mark on Raytheon, announcing in October that the company would cut 5,300 jobs on top of the 8,700 positions Raytheon had said in January that it planned to eliminate.

"He's made some pretty hard decisions up front," said Paul Nisbet, an analyst with JSA Research Inc. in Newport, R.I.

Burnham, who was not available for comment, has expressed a desire to boost sales, earnings, cash generation and investor value at Raytheon, and projected earnings would grow 10 per cent to 12 per cent a year through 2001, with 6 per cent to 8 per cent revenue growth over the same period.

"We intend to grow ourbusinesses. We intend to be the most productive player in our markets," said Raytheon spokeswoman Toni Simonetti.

Analysts said Burnham met with investors and analysts in October, telling Wall Street what he liked and didn't like at Raytheon and his plans for fixing the problems he saw.