Boston Globe -- NorthWest section
Thursday, May 19, 2005

Tempered optimism at Hanscom

By Davis Bushnell, Globe Correspondent

While Hanscom Air Force Base officials in Bedford begin charting expansion
plans in buoyed spirits, they say they're also mindful that future
operations are guaranteed only if a nine-member federal base closure
commission concurs with last week's Defense Department recommendations.

''We're one step closer" to surviving this year's round of base closings,
Colonel Timothy C. Ceteras, commander of the 66th Air Base Wing at Hanscom,
said at a press conference following the Pentagon's release last Friday of a
recommended list of base closures and realignments. The Hanscom base escaped
the initial cuts along with the US Soldier Systems Center in Natick.

Unlike Hanscom, which will gain more than 1,000 jobs under the Pentagon
plan, the Army's Natick Labs will not benefit from reassignments from other
installations.

Nothing should be taken for granted until the process has been completed,
Ceteras emphasized, as did state and local officials. They noted that the
Base Realignment and Closure Commission, commonly called BRAC, is mandated
to submit its findings to President Bush no later than Sept. 8. Then Bush
has until Sept. 23 to approve or reject the commission's recommendations. If
he backs the commission's findings, they will become binding 45 legislative
days later. If the findings are disapproved, the commission has until Oct.
20 to submit revised recommendations.

Because the commission will be doing most of its work in the next three
months, the state's lobbying forces are keeping in touch with commissioners
on a regular basis.

''We're already reaching out to them with a booklet and video," both of
which are intended to reinforce the value of the air base and the Army's
research laboratories, said Cort C. Boulanger, spokesman for the
Massachusetts Defense Technology Initiative, cochaired by Governor Mitt
Romney and Senator Edward M. Kennedy. ''We're taking advantage of every
opportunity" to be heard, Boulanger said.

''All of us must continue an aggressive campaign until September to keep the
[Hanscom] base open," said Sara Mattes, of Lincoln, chairwoman of the
Hanscom Area Towns Selectmen's group, made up of officials from Bedford,
Concord, Lexington, and Lincoln, the communities adjoining the 846-acre air
base.

''While we were obviously thrilled by the news" that Hanscom was not on the
May 13 list, ''it's not over until it's over," added Mattes, referring to
the base closure process. She is also the representative of the selectmen's
group to the technology initiative.

Bedford Selectman Sheldon Moll, who's also a longtime member of the
selectmen's committee, described the base closure process as ''a story
that's still unfolding.

''There's always political maneuvering in Washington to contend with," he
said.

No one is more familiar with the BRAC process than one of the state's
lobbyists, Alan J. Dixon, who chaired the commission in 1994 and 1995. He is
a former Democratic US senator from Illinois.

Commissioners can, and do, tinker with the Defense Department's list of
bases targeted for closure, Dixon has said.

''In 1995, we had generals and admirals [on the commission] who were
independent thinkers on some matters," he said.

As the process is now being played out, Ceteras and others at the Bedford
air base are looking into what infrastructure changes will be needed to
accommodate realignments involving personnel who will be coming to Hanscom
or leaving the base for installations in Ohio and New Mexico.

If Hanscom's remaining open should prove to a sure thing, the reassignments,
resulting in a net gain of 1,104 jobs for the Bedford base, will be made
from two to six years after the base realignment and closure decisions are
finalized, Ceteras said.

It's been recommended that some 270 people from two Hanscom laboratories be
transferred to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio and Kirtland Air
Force Base in Albuquerque, N.M.

Coming to Hanscom under the current Pentagon plan will be contingents from
Wright-Patterson and Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. The military and
civilian workers will all be information technology support system
specialists, Ceteras said.

The air base now has 1,780 military personnel, 1,631 civilian workers, and
2,525 contractors. The Army's Natick Labs, which will lose 19 workers
unrelated to the facility's core food and apparel research efforts, has a
workforce of 2,958.

The defense technology initiative and MassDevelopment, the quasi-public
economic development agency, are working with Air Force and Army officials
on infrastructure needs, such as additional housing and new buildings for
Hanscom and new research-and-development space for Natick if the facility is
awarded a new mission, Boulanger said. Hanscom now has 850 housing units
managed by a private firm.

Earlier this year, the state Legislature earmarked $242 million in bond
money for Hanscom improvements and $19 million for the Natick center.

Although it's not known now how much of this money the Pentagon will need,
''the state remains committed" to providing the funding, depending on
Defense Department wishes and needs, Boulanger said.

Davis Bushnell can be reached at bushnell@globe.com.

© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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