Defense industry launches SPAWAR initiative

In 2005, the Department of Defense’s Base Realignment and Closure Commission will make recommendations to the secretary of defense as to the fate of certain military installations in the United States. The BRAC commission last met in 1995, a year before the Charleston Navy Base was closed and the year Charleston’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command Center—SPAWAR—was formed.

Contractors in Charleston’s defense community are forming a pre-emptive strike to spare SPAWAR from BRAC’s chopping block.

“We’re building a coalition to keep SPAWAR here,” says Tim Washington, senior vice president of Scientific Research Corp., a SPAWAR defense contractor.

The coalition, tentatively called the Technology Leadership Forum until it incorporates and achieves nonprofit status, consists of about 15 defense contractors, who have been meeting monthly for nearly a year. The contractors will try to garner community support for SPAWAR and lobby on behalf of the facility.

The coalition’s SPAWAR defense plan includes:

– Working with elected officials on Capitol Hill to keep abreast of the BRAC commission’s intentions and to learn the commission’s criteria for facility-closure recommendations;

– Collecting information from previous BRAC commission meetings;

– Gathering information on SPAWAR projects and projects defense contractors are doing for SPAWAR;

– Getting SPAWAR defense contractors more involved with their chambers of commerce;

– Increasing local public awareness of Charleston’s defense industry.

The forum points out SPAWAR-Charleston’s vital role in the war against terrorism and the recent efforts of James Ward, head of the facility’s Command & Control department.

In April, Ward briefed members of the U.S. Senate about SPAWAR-Charleston’s homeland security initiatives. These include physical and electronic security systems, biometric sensors, surveillance and intelligence tools, remote control-operated and sensor-equipped watercraft, electronic communications systems and networks, and other anti-terrorism and counter-terrorism projects.

In addition, Ward noted SPAWAR-Charleston’s nearly $642 million economic impact on South Carolina, $540.5 million of which is linked to Charleston-area defense contractors.

The SPAWAR facility has roughly 1,500 employees earning an average salary of $54,610, according to Ward.

“SPAWAR is a primary magnet for drawing high-tech companies to the Lowcountry,” claims James Hoffman, business development manager for defense software contractor CSSI Inc. and a former commander of the SPAWAR facility. “The quality of life here plus SPAWAR’s presence make Charleston well equipped to attract quality high-tech personnel from across the country.”

Hoffman believes that attraction can be further strengthened if SPAWAR-Charleston and the Lowcountry Graduate Center—a joint graduate school including the College of Charleston, The Citadel and the Medical University of South Carolina—formed a cooperative education arrangement for engineering and other high-tech students.

“That could be the nucleus of a high-tech brain trust,” says Hoffman.

On an undergraduate level, SPAWAR already has cooperative education programs with The Citadel and the College of Charleston. In addition, SPAWAR has academic partnerships with Gregg Middle School and Hanahan Middle School.

“SPAWAR is a real jewel in the Charleston community,” Washington emphasizes. “If you combine SPAWAR’s economic impact with that of local defense contractors, you’re talking about a local defense industry that generates about $1.2 billion.”