Efforts to give Raytheon Missile Systems more room to grow in Tucson are critical to help the region’s biggest private employer thrive, the company’s president said Thursday.

With increasing global security threats, as well as global competition in the arms market, Raytheon needs flexibility — including space around its local operation at Tucson International Airport — to compete and grow, Missile Systems President Taylor Lawrence said at the annual luncheon of Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities Inc.

The world’s biggest missile maker, Raytheon develops and makes weapons including the Tomahawk cruise missile at its sprawling site at the airport, employing more than 9,000 people locally.

“One aspect of flexibility is the ability to expand in close proximity to existing operations, so we can affordably modernize when the time comes,” said Lawrence, who has headed Raytheon’s operation here since 2008. “It’s no secret ... one of our biggest concerns has been our ability to grow here in Tucson.”

In 2010, Raytheon passed on expanding in Tucson, choosing Huntsville, Alabama, as the site for a new, $75 million factory employing hundreds of people. That spurred ongoing efforts led by Pima County to improve access and create buffer areas around Raytheon’s airport site.

Lawrence noted that when billionaire Howard Hughes bought the airport-area property 60 years ago, it was “out away from the city with wide-open spaces so we could build missiles with a nice buffer zone around it.”

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