Boston Globe
May 14, 2005

N.E. hit hard in base closings
Mass. gains about 500 jobs; Hanscom OK

By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff

WASHINGTON -- Massachusetts was largely spared in the latest round of
proposed military base closings, with the Pentagon yesterday recommending
that 1,100 jobs be transferred to Hanscom Air Force Base in Bedford and that
the Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick remain open.

But Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod and two smaller posts -- Army
Reserve centers in Chicopee and Devens -- would be closed, resulting in a
combined loss of about 600 jobs. Overall, the state would come out slightly
ahead, with a net gain of about 500.

New England would suffer the biggest job loss of any region, losing nearly
14,500 workers -- half of the 29,000 that would be eliminated nationwide
under the proposal.

Most of the region's losses would come from closing the Portsmouth Naval
Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, and the New London Naval Submarine Base in
Groton, Conn. Connecticut would lose about 8,600 jobs overall and Maine
6,900, making them the two hardest-hit states in the country.

The outcome marked a rare victory for Republican Governor Mitt Romney and
Democratic Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who are often on opposing sides of the
political divide but cochaired a public-private initiative that lobbied to
preserve Hanscom and Natick.

''This is probably a high point in terms of selling Massachusetts together,"
Romney said on the State House steps. ''I think history is going to show
that this day and this expansion has the most positive economic impact on
Massachusetts than anything that's happened in a very long time."

The recommendations of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld will be reviewed
by the Base Realignment and Closure Commission, which has until September to
propose a final list to President Bush and Congress. The four previous
panels created to handle base closings since 1988 have overturned between 10
and 15 percent of the Pentagon's recommendations on average. A new rule,
however, requires the support of seven of the nine panel members to make a
change, and the current panel will have less time than its predecessors to
review challenges.

Rumsfeld's plan calls for closing 33 major bases -- more than any of the
four earlier rounds -- and reconfiguring 29 other major bases and 775
smaller facilities around the country. The South would be the only region to
gain jobs, about 22,300. The West would lose 5,900, the rest of the
Northeast outside New England 6,700, and the Midwest 7,700.

Rumsfeld said the restructuring is critical to meet modern-day threats,
which defense planners say are more likely to come from the Pacific than the
Atlantic.

''Our current arrangements, designed for the Cold War, must give way to the
new demands of the war against extremism and other evolving 21st-century
challenges," Rumsfeld said.

In Massachusetts, officials breathed a sigh of relief. Political and
business leaders had worked for two years to persuade the Pentagon to expand
Hanscom as a high-tech research hub and to save the Natick facility, which
is set to lose only 19 of its 1,384 jobs. Those leaders hailed the
announcement as a clear victory.

''I think it was a good day for Massachusetts and a good day for national
security," Kennedy said in an interview. ''This is a real affirmation of
what we have been talking about in terms of Hanscom's cutting-edge
information and intelligence research."

Under Rumsfeld's proposal, Hanscom would take over research on air and space
information technology now conducted at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in
Ohio, Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, and Lackland Air Force Base in
Texas. The Bedford facility would lose the Air Force Research Lab, relocated
to Wright- Patterson, as well as its Space Vehicles Directorate, which the
Pentagon wants to move to Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico. But
overall, Hanscom would gain 1,104 jobs.

Another Massachusetts success story was Westover Air Reserve Base, which is
set to add 10 planes and 80 jobs. The 2,500-acre facility is the largest Air
Force Reserve base in the country, with a runway long enough to serve as an
emergency landing site for the space shuttle. The base currently employs
2,600 military personnel and 1,000 civilians.

Closing the Otis base in Bourne would cost 443 military and 62 civilian
jobs.

It was from Otis on Sept. 11, 2001, that two F-15 fighter jets from the 102d
Fighter Wing scrambled in an unsuccessful attempt to intercept the hijacked
airliners that were en route to New York. The F-15s at Otis currently
conduct round-the-clock operations to protect the Northeast from terrorist
attacks and to detect smuggling and illegal immigration. A military official
said planes at other bases in the Northeast, which he did not identify,
would perform those functions if Otis is closed as the Pentagon has
recommended.

''It's a mistake to close Otis," said Senator John F. Kerry, Democrat of
Massachusetts. ''Otis is the number one base for homeland defense on the
entire East Coast."

Also to be closed is the Malone US Army Reserve Center in Devens, which
would mean the loss of 100 military and 55 civilian jobs. Thirteen jobs
would be lost in the shutting of Westover US Army Reserve Center in
Chicopee. Meanwhile, the Boston Detachment of the Puget Sound Naval
Shipyard, in a downtown office building, would be realigned, cutting 108
civilian jobs.

Members of Congress from other New England states also criticized the
Pentagon cutbacks and vowed to put up a fierce fight.

''Today's decision by the Department of Defense is nothing short of
stunning, devastating, and above all, outrageous," said Senator Olympia
Snowe , Republican of Maine. ''It is a travesty and a strategic blunder of
epic proportions on the part of the Defense Department."

Closing Portsmouth, which overhauls warships and nuclear submarines, would
also hurt the Granite State. ''About half the workforce is from New
Hampshire," said Senator John Sununu, a New Hampshire Republican. ''It's a
big hit for New Hampshire and has very serious implications for national
security."

For the region as a whole, the news could not have been much worse,
officials said.

Portsmouth, established in 1800, accounts for an estimated $500 million in
revenue and 4,510 jobs. Also bad news for Maine was word that the Brunswick
Naval Air Station would be reconfigured, for a loss of another 2,420 jobs.

Connecticut would be even harder hit with the loss of the submarine base in
Groton, which was established in 1872. Democratic Senator Christopher J.
Dodd acknowledged it would be a difficult fight to retain the base:
''There's a 20 percent chance we can reverse this. I will be very honest. It
will be an uphill climb."

Pentagon officials said closing the sub base would help reduce excess
capacity of shipyard facilities. Submarine bases in Georgia and Virginia,
the Pentagon said, provide enough fleet coverage for the Eastern Seaboard.
The ship repair facilities would be moved to Norfolk, Va., and Kings Bay,
Ga. The decision comes despite months of lobbying from Connecticut and Rhode
Island officials who say the base pumps $2.5 billion into the local economy.

Chris Hellman, a base closure analyst at the Center for Arms Control and
Nonproliferation in Washington, said the restructuring -- expected to save
the government $48.6 billion -- reflects the shifting emphasis of national
security. ''We're seeing a geographic reorientation away from Europe toward
Asia," he said.

Globe staff writer Matt Viser and Globe correspondent Janette A. Neuwahl
contributed to this report from Boston. Material from the Associated Press
was also used.

============================
High-tech boost seen for region

By Robert Weisman and Matt Viser, Globe Staff

The base-closing plan unveiled by the Pentagon yesterday would accelerate
New England's transition from a blue-collar bastion to a high-tech economy
specializing in research and development.

A pair of research-oriented bases tied to Boston-area industry and
university labs would be preserved, with Hanscom Air Force Base in Bedford
gaining more than 1,000 technology jobs. Hanscom's expertise in
command-and-control communications draws on the strengths of the region, as
does the Army's Soldier Systems Center's work in Natick, developing
technologies to equip and outfit military personnel.

On the other end of the economic spectrum, thousands of jobs would be lost,
including those of civilian welders, electricians, and mechanics, at Navy
sites along the Maine and Connecticut coasts. The shutdown of Portsmouth
Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, about 60 miles north of Boston, would
eliminate more than 4,500 jobs, most of them civilian.

''This doesn't feel like a body blow because the bases we're losing aren't
linked to the growing areas of our regional economy," said David Luberoff,
executive director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston at
Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. ''But this continues the
hollowing-out of the good-paying blue-collar jobs."

While the expansion of Hanscom and the retention of the Army's Soldier
Systems Center in Natick were cause for celebration in Massachusetts, where
a well- organized lobbying effort had trumpeted the brainpower of the two
Boston-area bases, New England as a whole faces a net loss of more than
14,000 jobs under the Pentagon's base realignment and closure process, known
as BRAC. The military's recommendations still must be approved by an
independent BRAC commission and sent on to Bush and Congress.

Among hard-hit New England states, Massachusetts looked to be a big, if
politically unlikely, winner in the Pentagon restructuring, though details
about new jobs are still being worked out.

Governor Mitt Romney, at a State House news conference yesterday, said the
new military jobs at Hanscom would boost the state's high-tech economy.
Thousands of private-sector jobs could be created through a ripple effect,
suggested Christopher R. Anderson, president of the Massachusetts Defense
Technology Initiative, which led the two-year, $2.5 million lobbying effort
to spare Hanscom and the Natick site.

''It's a huge shot in the arm for us, and it's something we can build on,"
Romney said. He said he plans to send Ranch C. Kimball, the state's economic
development secretary, to military hubs around the country to recruit
defense contractors to the Route 128 corridor to work on projects for the
research bases.

The sparing of Hanscom and Natick were big victories for state political and
business leaders, who had urged the Department of Defense to weigh the
importance of intellectual capital along with more-traditional military
measures in assessing bases.

''They've evaluated the length of the runway, the number of hangars they
have, the number of planes they have -- all criteria which is absolutely
irrelevant with regards to the importance of Hanscom as the center for
intelligence and information," said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of
Massachusetts. ''This is the first time that they've looked at the
research."

The state Legislature approved $242 million in bonds in February to expand
Hanscom, but it is not clear now whether all the funds will be needed. The
bond money, to add 1.25 million square feet of space, assumed the military
would add 5,000 jobs. Since only 1,100 jobs are planned, only part of the
funds might be spent.

As part of the same bond package, the Legislature set aside an additional
$19 million to enlarge the base in Natick by 110,000 square feet, enough to
add 200 jobs. That, like the money for Hanscom, was contingent on the bases
staying put. In the case of Natick, the Army's Soldier Systems Center will
remain open, though it will lose 19 jobs. Pentagon officials have yet to
specify exactly how they will take advantage of the Massachusetts plan.

Romney and Kennedy have approached the Army about expanding Natick's role
through a consortium of businesses that would develop military technology. A
quasipublic organization, the John Adams Innovation Institute in
Westborough, is studying the idea, said Alan J. Macdonald, executive
director of the technology lobby. MassDevelopment, the state's economic
development authority, has been designated as the project manager for the
state's role in the expansion at Hanscom and Natick.

State officials yesterday were trying to determine what jobs the Pentagon
wants to send to Hanscom and what infrastructure will be needed. Their plans
included $168 million from a private developer for 800 units of housing. The
new jobs are not expected to arrive for two years, and a smaller number of
jobs will be transferred. But it could take between two and four years for
new buildings to be constructed, Anderson said.

Elsewhere in New England, the BRAC plan cast a darker shadow. In addition to
Portsmouth, the Pentagon recommended closing the New London Naval Submarine
Base in Groton, Conn., and realigning the Naval Air Station in Brunswick,
Maine. All told, more than 17,000 jobs will be eliminated at the three Navy
sites.

Russ Thibeault, president of Applied Economic Research in Laconia, N.H.,
said the closing of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, which overhauls nuclear
submarines on Seavey Island in Kittery, Maine, across from Portsmouth, N.H.,
will drain more than $500 million a year from the area economy. ''It's a
hard jab to the jaw, but it's not a knockout blow to the Seacoast economy,"
Thibeault said.

Even after the Pentagon's plan is approved, the bases would not close
immediately. Historically, it has taken more than three years on average to
complete the shutdown of a military base, and often several more years to
clear up environmental contamination before the site can be redeveloped,
said Christie I. Baxter, principal research scientist at MIT, who led a
research project that studied nearly 100 major base closings between 1988
and 1995.

Globe correspondent Davis Bushnell contributed to this report. Robert
Weisman can be reached at weisman@globe.com. Matt Viser can be reached at
maviser@globe.com.

© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
==========
**NOTICE: In accordance with 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.**
==========