A C-130 at Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado. (File photo/USAF)
COMMENTARY
By Troy Turner
HUNTSVILLE – Twenty years from now, U.S. Space Command’s ribbon cutting at its first operational facility on Redstone Arsenal will be a footnote lost like a pine needle in a kudzu field.
Pardon the Alabama simile, but simply put, more important things are about to happen with Space Command’s presence in Huntsville that go far beyond the symbolic events necessary to impress a keen public eye and an even more attentive political one.
Meanwhile, Redstone Arsenal needs a dose of Rocky Mountain High.
Pardon the Colorado metaphor, but Huntsville has everything it needs to become a well-suited and powerful host for the United States Space Command Headquarters, except… a nice mix of workforce talent already with the specific experience that the command very much desires to keep.
Construction on a highly secure, tech-filled new headquarters building for SPACECOM within Redstone will no doubt be a welcome replacement for the borrowed facilities in use until then, and the ribbon-cutting for that one will be quite the show.
That, however, will take at least a half-dozen years, and the SPACECOM mission in Huntsville starts now.
Who among the 1,800?
SPACECOM commander, Gen. Stephen Whiting, has made it clear: Yes, SPACECOM will be hiring for new jobs created in north Alabama; and yes, there is a strong desire to bring current civilian employees with them from Colorado.
Alabama wins either way, whether the headquarters move creates new — and very good — jobs, or brings new families into the local community, and thus the local economy.
Gen. Stephen Whiting
I spoke with Whiting shortly after the ribbon-cutting to ask how the recruitment lure to Alabama is going.
“It’s really important to us that we retain as many of our outstanding government civilians that we have,” he reiterated. “They actually constitute 60 percent of our headquarters staff.”
If you’re into numbers, his staff now is a little above 1,000.
There are about 80 SPACECOM personnel already in Huntsville opening the door to the command’s new chapter, with an expected 200 in place by the end of the year.
“We expect about 1,800 people when our permanent headquarters is open in a few years. And then there will be families that come along with that. But we’ll have 1,800 military, civilians and government contractors working in our new headquarters,” Whiting said.
How many will come from Colorado is still unknown, but the math after that is determined becomes simpler. “Those who choose not to move, we will hire new people, here in north Alabama,” he said.
So back to Colorado. What’s on the mind for those debating the move from the Rocky Mountains to the Tennessee Valley?
A reverse gold rush, perhaps?
(File photo/SPACECOM)
Providing for an educated decision
As previously mentioned, these are not just civilian jobs we’re talking about, they’re GOOD jobs.
SPACECOM already is offering incentives to keep its talent, but it will take more than good pay to lure some of that talent away from other good employment opportunities in the tech-minded corridors of Colorado. At least for the best of the best, and those are the folks SPACECOM obviously want as well.
So, is it time for Alabama to roll out the red carpet?
Yep.
“We’ve been in the process of helping to educate them about the opportunities here in north Alabama, and we very much appreciate the support of the local communities here and the Chamber of Commerce, who are going to send a team the first week of June to hold town halls in Colorado to help us with that education,” Whiting told me.
“So, that’s been something we’ve been looking forward to, to help our civilians understand better what’s available here in north Alabama, and we think that will be a great opportunity for them to learn more.”
Keep in mind, most of the military personnel are trained to follow orders, so if those orders say go to Alabama, they go to Alabama.
“For our government civilians, they have a choice of where to live. And just like government civilians here in Huntsville are here for a reason, our government civilians in Colorado Springs are there for a reason,” Whiting said. “And so, we want to make sure they know of all the opportunities so they can make the best choice for their families.
“We hope to bring as many of them with us as we possibly can.”
The Colorado impact
What becomes of those who stay in Colorado and the job market there?
A hint came when Colorado’s business community asked the state’s attorney general to drop a lawsuit challenging the decision to move SPACECOM headquarters from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, as if that legal runaway horse was ever going to be back in the barn.
The Colorado Springs Chamber & Economic Development Corporation, southern Colorado’s largest business organization, announced plans to file an Amicus Brief opposing the lawsuit, as reported in January on AlaDefense.com.
(Courtesy photo)
Colorado business leaders said the lawsuit “was neither requested nor supported by the region and does not serve America’s national security interests.”
Colorado, like Alabama, is a state heavily tied to U.S. military and commercial space interests. Unlike Alabama, Colorado tends to have opposite political leanings, and a wise business community said let’s stay out of politics and focus on national security.
Smart move, and one many in the Rocky Mountain region hopes will keep the War Department and federal government sending contracts to those there that deserve them based on merit and expertise still considered extremely valuable by the miliary and space industry.
“We didn’t ask for it. We don’t want it,” business leaders referring to the lawsuit said in an op-ed published by The Colorado Springs Gazette. “The lawsuit weakens our position to compete for future military opportunities and threatens the continued success that has made us a leading center for military and aerospace and defense innovation.”
Well said.
Having spent many years working and living in Colorado, I see a robust future for the state’s space and defense industries.
While, like the economies in many states that ride up and down with their primary revenue-driving sources of income (think Texas and oil), Colorado’s tech-talent magnet will only get stronger as a future society depends on a more-crowded-by-the-day orbit of space assets.
Oh, and who leads the protection of those space assets?
Our beloved United States Space Command, thank you.
Space as we know it
SPACECOM has much more to worry about than a new building in Alabama, or keeping a favorite technician in Colorado.
Frankly, I have great admiration for Gen. Whiting and his supportive staff for his impressive ability to talk like a political diplomat one day, a Chamber of Commerce rep another day; and all at the same time know that the entire world depends on some of the military decisions he must make.
Gen. Stephen Whiting speaking with media.
Russia has made threats to implement a nuclear weapon in space that could zap and turn into space junk anything around it.
China likewise is working on killer spacecraft, ranging from those with advanced weapon systems to others that could simply bully-knock one of ours out of service.
Turkey just announced it is looking to develop military space assets, as are several American allies. And we know all too well about rouge players such as Iran and North Korea.
It’s getting crowded up there.
Space as we know it from the early and seemingly innocent days of NASA and Apollo missions is not the same space we rely upon today for everything from cell phones to GPS to bank transactions and so much more that most of us never consider.
So yes, that ribbon-cutting in Huntsville, Alabama, last week will sooner than later be forgotten.
The mission behind it, however, has only just begun.
Troy Turner is the editor and senior consultant for AlaDefense.com. He can be contacted at [email protected]. His bio can be found here.
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