Newswire - A Year After Decision to Close Hanscom Labs, Job Replacement Efforts Still Going 

Hanscom

The Eagle-Tribune

Bryan  McGonigle

Boston University Washington News Service

Oct. 25

WASHINGTON, Oct. 25 – More than a year after the decision to keep Bedford’s Hanscom Air Force Base open but strip it of its research facilities, efforts are still underway to replace jobs that will be lost.

Last fall, the bipartisan Base Realignment and Closure Commission, designated to review proposals for military base restructuring, decided that the Air Force Research Laboratories would be better suited for bases in other states. The labs will be phased out from 2007 to 2012.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Rep. Marty Meehan, D-Mass., met with Pentagon officials to keep Hanscom open during last year’s round of base reviews, trying to convince the commission that the base was vital to the region’s economy and the military’s technological progress.

“The Department of Defense should be leveraging the intellectual capital of our community,” Meehan said Wednesday.

In June 2005, the Pentagon spared Hanscom from its round of base closings and announced that it would spend $131 million on expansion of the facility. The money was expected to create more than 1,000 jobs.

But the commission rejected that proposal and decided to move Hanscom’s research labs to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio and Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, costing Hanscom about 750 jobs.

“We fought to save Hanscom inside the Pentagon and were wildly successful inside the Pentagon,” Kennedy spokesman Melissa Wagoner said. “Unfortunately, the commission did not agree with those recommendations.”

Before announcing its 2005 decisions, the commission said on its Web site that reducing base costs by 20 percent could generate $7 billion in annual savings that would be better spent on modernizing weapons.

“While I’m grateful we were able to protect Hanscom, its 11,000 jobs dependent on the base and its world-class research during the last highly competitive BRAC round, I’m disappointed that the commission didn’t accept the Pentagon’s recommendation to expand the base at Hanscom,” Kennedy said. “The commission’s review of Hanscom was cursory at best, and certainly wasn’t sufficient to understand the natural fit for the additional jobs within Hanscom’s mission."

The Base Realignment and Closure process was established in 1988 to keep base restructuring out of Congress’s complete control and take regional politics and horse-trading out of the equation. Since then, the commission has held five rounds of restructuring – in 1988, 1991, 1993, 1995 and 2005 – in which it has determined what it sees necessary for military efficiency.

Congress must either accept or reject the commission’s recommendations in total without amendment.

Many states have filed lawsuits disputing commission decisions once they’ve been made final, but none has been successful.

Wagoner said that’s why the best way to deal with the closing of Hanscom’s research labs is to generate job growth in other areas of military research in the state.

Kennedy has rallied for and earmarked millions of dollars for Massachusetts’ defense industry since last year’s decision. He delivered $2 million to UMass Lowell for biological defense research, $2 million to Northeastern University for electronics and communication projects, $2.6 million to UMass Amherst for communications and energy harvesting research and $4.5 million for Boston University’s Photonics Center.

Kennedy has helped secure more than $4 million in defense money for Malden Mills in Lawrence for research on cold-weather clothing.

“I think that there’s a feeling among the workers in Massachusetts that they’d like to stay, and given how robust the defense cluster is in Massachusetts, I think a lot of them will be able to find other jobs in Massachusetts,” Wagoner said. “And obviously we’ll be doing whatever we can to help with that.”

Meehan, who has also helped get millions of dollars of federal funds for the local military industry since the commission’s decision, is optimistic about Hanscom’s future.

“Saving Hanscom on the whole is a positive thing for Massachusetts,” Meehan said. “I think Hanscom and Massachusetts are going to remain a critical part of defense industry.”

Meehan said that the fact the base was kept open is a good sign for Massachusetts’ defense businesses and that an important step will be to fill the space vacated by the research labs and work with regional businesses like Raytheon Co. and Goodrich Corp.to expand the defense industry despite the commission’s decision.

“What we’re doing now is working with the Air Force and the Pentagon to make sure we have something to fill the lab space,” Meehan said.

Meehan said that while the closing of the Air Force Research Laboratory was bad news, Hanscom’s Electronics Systems Center should be a focus of job growth and technological development.

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