Warnings and Opportunities

By Jay Friess
Editor

The Southern Maryland Navy Alliance is making a plan, a strategic outlook designed to help local military contractors weather the storms of budget cuts, base closures and even windmills.

The Alliance, a non-profit group that monitors the region’s military-based economy and lobbies on behalf of local contractors, released its annual report last week, which promotes the group’s efforts to plan responses to a 2014 round of Base Realignment and Closure, a shift toward supporting irregular warfare and encroachment by Eastern Shore wind farms.

Ken Farquar, president of President of ManTech Systems Engineering Corporation and vice president of the Alliance, noted that shrewd planning brought Southern Maryland much success in the BRACs of the 1990s.

“But this is no time to rest on what was a great plan 15 years ago,” Farquar wrote. “As warfare tactics have changes, so did technology and the political landscape throughout the world and across our country.”

Farquar said the region needs to change with the times and plan for the next shift in Naval aviation.

“The really good news in all this is that Patuxent River and Webster Field are still leaders in [Research, Development, Testing and Evaluation] with world class facilities and an amazing pool of talent.”

However, that talent needs upgraded and expanded facilities to keep thriving, Farquar wrote. He credited the region’s political leadership with taking the lead in doing so. He noted that Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md., 5th) lobbied Pentagon leadership to push Pax River as one of the FAA’s forthcoming Centers of UAV Integration and helped secure funding for the Special Communications Requirements facility at Webster Field and two phases of the Aircraft Prototype Facility at Pax River.

The Alliance has also been in communication with Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), who visited Pax River in July. Finally, Farquar credited Del. John Bohanan (D-St. Mary’s) with being very active in the details of the Alliance’s planning process.

“Delegate Bohanan’s active participation throughout a series of meetings has been essential in helping to define and address important issues in support of our strategic plan; his insights to this process have proven to be invaluable,” Farquar wrote.

The Alliance Report also commented on the progress of the Joint Strike Fighter program and testing operations currently underway on the USS Wasp. The F-35B Lightning II short takeoff and landing variant for the Marine Corps  is on probation with DoD and in the cross hairs of Congressional budget cutters.

“A satisfactory outcome for these initial sea trials will be a critical step toward proving the B can be removed from its current ‘probationary’ statues,” wrote Brent Bennitt, president of Wyle’s Aerospace Group, who sits on the Alliance board.

The Alliance reported that the $14.1 million effort by the Maryland Broadband Cooperative to create a high-speed data link between Pax River with the Wallops Flight Facilty on the Eastern Shore should be completed by 2012, barring any delay by state regulators. MdBC has already installed a line between Wallops and Cambridge. A line crossing the Patuxent River from the base to the Calvert Shore is scheduled to be completed next month. The cable span that will cross the Chesapeake Bay is still waiting for approval.

There is also a bit of turbulence on the Eastern Shore, as the Alliance reports that proposed wind farms for Crisfield and Ocean City could disrupt operations in the nearby Atlantic Test Range, which is operated by Pax River. The windmills, if built tall enough, could disrupt the Navy’s radar range, producing false positive readings.

“The counties on the Eastern Shore of Maryland have no dependence on the success of the Navy mission and have no incentive to accommodate the Navy’s needs,” wrote Greg Gillingham and Alliance board member Bob Mann.

The Alliance report has not yet been published on the group’s web site.