Firm Gets Aid to End Reliance on Defense Business: Federal grant of $250,000 is designed to help ease Van Nuys company's transition to producing consumer goods.: [Home Edition]

In a move to stabilize an economy hard hit by defense downsizing, Commerce Department Secretary Ron Brown presented a $250,000 check to a small Van Nuys electronics manufacturing company Friday to help its transition from converting defense-related products to consumer goods.

Brown's visit to Industrial Electronic Engineers kicked off a weekend of meetings and presentations by Brown to promote the Commerce Department's defense conversion project.

The 2-year-old project is designed to encourage small- and medium-size companies-once dependent on supplying the military-to switch to producing items that can be sold locally and overseas.

Brown told a group of nearly 70 workers and...