FEATURE ARTICLE

October 2005

Northwestern Cities Peg Prosperity to Army Programs

By Joe Pappalardo

Towns in the Pacific Northwest are hoping the expansion of the Army’s Stryker brigades and the development of the Future Combat Systems will lead to continued economic benefits to the area, local officials said.

The town of Kent, for example, features an outpost of the Boeing Co., which has a $21 billion FCS contract. The goal of FCS is to bring a host of new sensor and communications technology to a family of 18 vehicles.

The Army plans on fielding its first full FCS equipped brigade in 2014. However, an experimental brigade of 3,000 soldiers will be formed to test the equipment and produce doctrine for its use. The Army is expected to announce the location of this experimental brigade by the end of 2005, and establish it by 2008.

Tacoma and its suburbs would like the experimental brigade to be one of the Stryker units based in Fort Lewis, which is 25 miles from Kent. Stryker brigades operate the Army’s newest armored personnel carrier and are equipped with the latest technologies.

“Any expansion or new units would be celebrated here,” said Scott Huntley, spokesman for the city of Tacoma. “Anything they would need in support would be done in a minute … Any time you see new units, you get a boost in the economy.”

The process of placing Army units, however, is not one in which locals play a large part. Other than showing support for troops with events, having easy negotiations with bases over utility bills and easing the disruptions of city employees serving in the National Guard, most of the lobbying is done in Washington, D.C., Huntley said.

“We don’t have an economic development with the military in that way,” he added. “If we did, I think you’d find the city of Tacoma would bend over backwards if military had any specific needs.”

With Fort Lewis handling the introductions of the latest Army vehicles, the installation is gaining valuable experience in integrating new units. The base was the first home of the Stryker program, which was launched in 1999. The vehicle is seen as an intermediary until the FCS manned ground vehicle is developed.

Stryker units will train at Fort Lewis this fall with a new 105mm mounted howitzer, according to Dick Devlin, base spokesman. There is also some talk of making the fort a Stryker “center of excellence,” he added.

This year, nearly 2,000 soldiers of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment from Fort Polk, La. and their family members relocated to Fort Lewis. The regiment will be reorganized and trained to become a Stryker brigade.

Such demonstrable experience may weigh in the area’s favor when it comes time to stand up other units in the transformed military—experimental or otherwise.

Fort Lewis is the nation’s third largest base, and as such it can accommodate large increases in troops. “There’s not too many other places that can support it, size-wise,” Devlin noted, but refused to speculate on the base’s chances of hosting the experimental FCS brigade.

The towns around the base also have to accommodate increases in personnel. It is sometimes hard to estimate how many family members will arrive with units, Devlin said. Since much of the Stryker brigade is staffed with unmarried soldiers, fresh from basic training, the numbers with family is lower than average, he said.

The military estimates 2.3 family members will arrive at each base per soldier, but in Fort Lewis’ case, that figure proved too high. The benefit, Devlin said, is that the local community can slowly adjust to the influx.

“When that was viewed by the street, citizens were asking what we would do with all those people,” he said. “Now we have the chance to see the local economy adapt and expand over time.”

The Army also moved the helicopters of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment from Fort Polk to Fort Lewis. The choppers are now designated the 4th Squadron, 6th Aviation Regiment, and will fly with the Stryker brigade combat team. The previous two Stryker brigades that have deployed to Iraq went with aviation squadrons from other Army posts.

The arrival of more helicopters, plus a buildup of special operations aircraft, will likely help local contractors, big and small. For example, finding civilians who have experience in fuel handling is easy because similar work is done at nearby McChord Air Force Base, Devlin said.

“The base is growing, and that has to have a salutary effect on the contractors off the base,” he added.

Funds for barracks construction at Fort Lewis for 2006 is slated for just under $100 million. The defense appropriations bill based by the House appropriates $882 million for the procurement of an additional 240 Stryker vehicles, and allocates more money for the continued development of the Stryker Brigade concept at Fort Lewis, said a spokesman for Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash.

Even without the location of the experimental brigade at Fort Lewis, the northwest is already enjoying continued job creation, courtesy of FCS programs.

There are 580 positions at the Boeing Integrated Defense Systems plant at Kent, with as many as 60 additional positions expected by the end of 2006, said Randy Harrison of the company’s FCS communications department.

“A lot of legacy space center work was done here in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s,” Harrison said. “People with histories in complex systems integration work here.”

At a facility outside Seattle, approximately 10 Boeing staffers run the Integrated Technology Demonstration Lab, where the company used to design cockpits for pilots, similar flat screen monitors and information panels that are now built for the FCS family vehicles, Harrison said.

The jobs at the Boeing facility in Kent are mostly management and sophisticated engineering positions that are tasked with creating the secure intranet connection that will bind each soldier and platform of FCS, which is dubbed the “advanced collaborative environment.”

Harrison said the jobs FCS brings to Kent are almost exclusively white-collar positions. Local cities and towns prize these well-employed residents because of their good salaries, stability and ability to spread the wealth through purchases of property and luxury goods.

“These are strong jobs,” said Kent Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Marcelle Pechler. “The benefits trickle through the community.”

The city is suited for international trade, since it is a manufacturing and transportation hub, with road and rail connections to destinations throughout the Puget Sound, she said. Attracting and retaining industry is not just having the luck of a nearby base or facility, she added.

“Kent made a decision to invest heavily in its roads over the years,” Pechler said. “A lot of other cites wouldn’t want to do this.”

Many municipalities dread bringing heavy truck and rail traffic to their towns, but for Kent the transportation infrastructure is a lure for businesses like Boeing with nationwide or international operations, Pechler said. Ongoing transportation projects are also under way, including one meant to ensure that truck and rail traffic don’t interrupt each other, she added.

Contractors with whom Boeing deals to fulfill its military contracts extend through the state, she said, but the globalization of the defense industry has inspired the Chamber of Commerce to begin taking care of its own.

The Chamber established an advanced manufacturing center aimed at helping small businesses learn modern processes, allowing them to contend with national and international competitors for high-end contracts.

In the state of Washington, nine companies are FCS suppliers, with contracts valued at $21 million, Harrison said. Advances in information technology help keep FCS players, including the Army and international partners, on the same page, he said.

While the Army base and the Boeing facility do not overlap in their projects, even though FCS equipment will be retrofitted onto Strykers, the two are drawing on each other to improve the future Army. The proximity of Fort Lewis, the turnstile for many troops heading to and from Iraq, has proven to be a source of information for the engineers at Boeing.

Groups of soldiers from Fort Lewis have traveled to Kent to meet with Boeing employees “on a formal and informal basis” to impart lessons about what it is like to be embroiled in war, Harrison said. When asked, engineers also visit Fort Lewis for meetings.

These discussions help civilian engineers get acquainted with their users—young soldiers who must perform in stressful environments and harsh conditions. A talk with a returning soldier from Iraq “will help engineers get a feel for what it’s like to try replacing a light emitting diode in the middle of a sandstorm,” Harrison said.

That interplay does not come without risks to the coordination of the program, however. The military prefers to control the flow of information, particularly where technical priorities are concerned.

“The Army wants to be clear on who has the authority to speak to the team about requirements and specifications,” Harrison noted. “We have a structured system for who in the Army delivers those expectations.”

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