Rolling out welcome mat for BRAC transplants
At 3 a.m., the alarm clock would ring. By 4, Yolanda McKenzie was out the door.
And so began her 100-mile commute each morning from her home in Martinsburg, W.Va., to her job as records administrator for the Army Materiel Command in Fort Belvoir, Va., a commute that on a good day was two hours. Somewhere between 4:30 and 8 each evening, after the work day was said and done, she’d get in her car and prepare for the 100-mile commute back home, and less than 12 hours later would hear the alarm clock’s ring, beckoning her to do it all over again.
Today that commute from her brand new home in Owens Cross Roads to Redstone Arsenal is a mere 14 miles.
“I have more time,” McKenzie said. “I’m finally able to sleep later, I can stay up later, I can read – I can do anything that I want to do.”
No one ever thought that Barry Gangi, program analyst in the public and congressional affairs office at AMC, would want to make the move from Washington, D.C. to Huntsville, but it was Gangi that surprised everyone when he announced he would be continuing his 25-year employment with AMC at Redstone Arsenal.
“It’s a good opportunity,” said Gangi, who also purchased a new home in Owens Cross Roads. “After living in Washington, D.C. for 32 years it was time for a new adventure.”
That adventure he has discovered, hasn’t been all that different from life back on the East Coast – the affluence, social and entertainment possibilities still exist, with a taste of Southern hospitality and a slower pace of life thrown in for good measure. And of course the things that are lacking, like traffic and a high cost of living, didn’t hurt his decision to make the move either.
“Buying a house here is like going to a candy shop,” Gangi said. “And traffic in D.C. compared to here – there’s no comparison. Even on the worst day, there’s no comparison.”
They are stories being echoed across the Tennessee Valley as newcomers relocating to the area for BRAC discover that Huntsville and the surrounding area isn’t just good for an address on a business card, but rather, it is a community to live in and quickly come to love. Long gone are their days of lengthy commutes and traffic jams, and having to pinch pennies to meet the high cost of living – a home that would cost $668,633 in the D.C. metro area is a mere $226,779 in the Huntsville metro area, and something as simple as a dozen eggs carries a 46 cents difference between the two, according to the American Chamber of Commerce Researchers Association – is a thing of the past.
“When you have 97 retired general officers who decide to live in Huntsville, it tells you something,” Huntsville mayor Tommy Battle said. “These people have been all over the world, they’ve looked at every section of the United States and everywhere else, but they’ve decided to come live in Huntsville and there’s a reason for that. The reason gets down to the people, the quality of life, and your economic engine, which is Redstone Arsenal.”
That economic engine is poised to pick up steam, as the balance of the 4,700 Army and federal agency jobs moved to Redstone Arsenal as a result of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure are filled by Sept. 15. With those positions, another 5,000 defense and aerospace jobs have opened up in the surrounding area as a direct result, and yet another 9,000 indirect jobs as a result of that, making the Tennessee Valley a hotspot for population growth, with an estimated 20,000 people coming into the area for one reason or another related to BRAC, according to Joe Ritch, chair of the Tennessee Valley BRAC Committee.
“Companies tend to want to be near power,” Ritch said. “They want to be seen as part of the Redstone Arsenal family.”
As that Redstone Arsenal family has grown and continues to grow, area leaders have been busy preparing, like any new parent, to welcome that new life and to ensure that individuals are given all the keys to grow successfully in the community.
“We are a community where 90 percent of us are from somewhere else anyway, so when you start talking about embracing newcomers, we were all embraced at one time ourselves,” Battle said. “That’s one of the magic things of Huntsville. Huntsville is a very easy town to come into and to be accepted into, just because we’re all from somewhere else. So we’re used to that. We’re used to that process.”
Census data released at the end of February makes evident just how effective the Huntsville and Madison communities have gotten when it comes to rolling out those welcome mats. Madison, now the fastest growing city in the state and 10th largest, saw a 46.4 percent growth from the 2000 census, with today’s population hovering near 43,000. Huntsville saw the largest population increase over the past 10 years, increasing by 21,889. Now the second largest metro area in the state, the welcome however, has not been without its challenges for leaders paving the way for a population and economic growth that seems almost unheard of in today’s economy.
“We recognize that we’re very lucky here compared to the rest of the nation,” Madison mayor Paul Finley said. “We’re one of the few places that’s trying to fill jobs. We’re one of the few places that continues to expand. What I’m looking forward to is continuing to struggle with such a positive need of additional infrastructure to support this growth. When you’re working to try to fill jobs, when you’re having trouble trying to keep up with the number of schools that you need, when you’re focused on bringing more infrastructure, it means that you’re prosperous and in this day and age, that’s something that not every city is struggling with.”
While the commute and cost of living has been an easy sell, newcomers have raised a magnifying glass to other issues, such as education, and Huntsville natives themselves can attest to the need for improvements to infrastructure and area roads as traffic has increased with the population. While the newcomers’ questions could have been an opportunity to dwell on what is wrong with the Tennessee Valley, it has instead allowed for a thorough evaluation and call to action.
“The conversation started with people coming in and us doing some self-examination of our own systems and saying, ‘What do we need, what do we have and what can’t we provide?’” Battle said.
Community leaders’ response and willingness to address what they need to do and provide as the area has grown with the Arsenal has not gone unnoticed by those that pass through the Arsenal gates every day. Battle and Finley both attribute a large part of the area’s success in preparing for the BRAC growth to their close work with Col. John Hamilton, Garrison commander, and Maj. Gen. Jim Rogers, Redstone Arsenal commander, as well as their predecessors, Col. Bob Pastorelli and Maj. Gen. Jim Myles.
“The incredibly positive relationship we have with all the local communities is one of the keys to our success,” Hamilton said. “There has never been any doubt in my mind that this community sees growth on Redstone Arsenal as something that is positive for northern Alabama and southern Tennessee and it’s something that will not work if we don’t all come together to develop solutions for the tasks required.”
The future of the Tennessee Valley embodied in the generations to come has taken center stage in terms of those needs that need to be fulfilled. As new employees move in, so in turn, do their children, the offspring of a highly intelligent population with high academic standards.
“Across the nation, we’re all facing the same things,” Battle said. “We have done very well in the Madison County school system, we have done very well in the Madison City school system, and Huntsville City school system we’re working on. The good thing is the community is focused on that and there’s a commitment to get our ship in order. It’s probably a two-year fix for financial, to get financially in line, and academics come next – we’ll be working on academics in that time too. It’s probably a four-year fix to get us back to the very top of the academic level. The good thing is the community has looked at it and said, ‘This is a place we want to place our focus and we want to make sure it works.’”
On average, the Madison County school system grows between 300 and 500 students a year, according to Geraldine Tibbs, director of communications and public relations, which boils down to what would equal about a new school per year. At the conclusion of last school year the system housed around 19,000 students – today it is hovering around 21,000, an increase of approximately 4,000 students since the 2003-04 school year.
“The evidence is seen,” Tibbs said of the effect BRAC and the job-related growth is having on enrollment. “Throughout Madison County all of our schools are just booming at the seam. Even in areas where we have had the least amount of growth over the years we are seeing them begin to grow. We do the very best we can with the resources that we have.”
Test scores remain high in the system’s schools, and engineering, medical and construction academies are in place at select schools, in addition to the offerings of Advanced Placement classes at both the middle and high school levels. The system received district-wide accreditation in January from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools’ Council on Accreditation and School Improvement. In addition to academics, the system also offers a wide variety of extracurricular activities, allowing students to become well-disciplined and well-rounded.
“Madison County has always been known for its academics and the kind of student that it produces,” Tibbs said. “Our product is our students, and we look at producing students that will be able to leave us and will be able to go anywhere and succeed globally. We look at this as a business as far as producing. We produce a good product, and that product is our students.”
A similar good product is evident in the Madison City school system, currently in the process of building a second high school, where family after family seems to be finding its way into the city limits for the educational benefits their tax dollars provide.
“It doesn’t really matter where you live in the city of Madison, your return on investment in living here, for your children and their education, will be strong,” Finley said.
While the care and development of the mind remains paramount in the Tennessee Valley, the care of the body has also come to the forefront as a population both young and old have moved into the area, and with them, whatever health ailments they may be facing. Dr. Pam Hudson, CEO of Crestwood Medical Center, assures newcomers the Huntsville healthcare community is prepared to meet the needs of the increasing population. While some have claimed the area is facing a critical shortage of doctors, Hudson said it’s not necessarily a shortage, but more or less a challenge to try to keep up with the constantly growing Huntsville community.
“When you look and see where we stand compared to the rest of the country, we are far better off,” Hudson said. “We are ready to meet the needs of the community.”
Rarely does an individual need to leave the area to get the healthcare they need, Hudson said, and to best connect newcomers with doctors, both Huntsville Hospital and Crestwood Medical Center have set up hotlines to help patients find available physicians, all the while continuing to recruit more doctors to the area. On average, Crestwood tries to add 10 doctors a year to the medical community in the Rocket City, with six already planning their moves for this year, including an ENT, general surgeon, fellowship trained endocrinologist, and three family practice doctors. Since 2005, Crestwood has added 45 physicians – 25 primary care physicians and 20 key specialists.
“Crestwood is dedicated to great care and service excellence,” Hudson said. “We aren’t the biggest hospital in town, but we know we need to try to be the best, and that’s great for patients. For hospitals to be competing on quality outcomes and service benefits the community.”
But the community benefits can’t stop there – while a population can be well-educated, employed and healthy, Finley and company want to foster citizens that find happiness outside the hours of 9 to 5, Monday through Friday, as well.
“We’re focused on making sure that we don’t forget that aspect of things, because it can’t all just be about roads and schools,” Finley said. “That’s what gets you here, but then you live here and you want those additional quality of life pieces that people expect.”
With that has come new retail and recreation opportunities – greenways, a dog park and soccer fields in Madison, as well as the developing Shoppes of Madison off Highway 72 near the new Madison Hospital, which promises to bring in stores specializing in apparel, shoes and home décor, as well as sit-down restaurants and what is rumored to be a Target.
“The people really drive the growth of a community,” said Tim Knox, executive director of the Madison Chamber of Commerce. “They let us know what they want and we try to give it to them.”
Both Huntsville and Madison have made a concerted effort to hear exactly what it is their citizens want, inviting residents to speak up at growth plan meetings, respond to surveys and even comment on the “City of Huntsville Ideas Map” which allowed Internet users to pinpoint exactly what they want in their city, and where they want to see it. While some ask the question, “What will Huntsville look like in 2021?” Battle already has an idea of what it’s going to look like in the years to come.
“We will be known as a place of innovation, a place of high technology,” Battle said. “The Chamber probably puts it best – a smart place to live. Not only smart in that we have smart people here – we have more degree professionals and engineers per capita than anywhere else in the U.S. – you want it to be a smart thing to be here with the quality of life, where you have a world class art museum, botanical garden, the number one tourist attraction – the Space & Rocket Center, which dwells on science, technology, engineering – those items have to be the things that we’re known for. That’s what one of our achievements has been, and we want to be known for our achievements.”
The free flow and exchange of ideas has been one of the reasons those achievements have been so numerous. As newcomers mix into the melting pot that is the Huntsville area, the lessons they’ve learned from where they’ve come from will be siphoned off and incorporated into the city they now call home, a process Battle and Finley encourage.
“Everybody comes in from someplace and they bring in the good ideas from those other areas,” Battle said. “Those good ideas are melded into what’s Huntsville. That has improved our community over the past 50 to 60 years.”
“We’re not set in our ways,” Finley said. “Don’t be afraid to get involved, because we welcome those who are doers in the community. This community’s success has come because people haven’t just sat back and watched somebody else do it, they got involved and helped make that next part of it that much better.”
The next part of it is key as growth doesn’t stop as BRAC 2005 comes to a close, but remains constant as Redstone Arsenal and the surrounding community adapts and evolves to meet the needs and missions that are required of it.
“This is a great place to live and work,” Garrison commander Hamilton said. “I see daily the efforts being put forth by all local leaders to ensure the infrastructure continues to expand to meet the growing demands. Of course these things never occur as rapidly as we all want, but from my position I see priorities in the right place, available resources are being wisely allocated, and leaders are pursuing the right projects further down the road. It’s important we continue the momentum in the areas of roads and schools that was started surrounding the BRAC 2005 decision process. None of that should slow down after September 2011.
“We see completing the tasks mandated by BRAC law as just a milestone in a much greater and longer growth story here. Simultaneous to executing the BRAC moves, we’ve been working hard to resource quite a few other stationing actions for federal activities coming to Redstone, both DoD and non-DoD organizations. We have to assume and be prepared for continued transformation of federal agencies that will need to operate on and around Redstone Arsenal. We will continue to improve the infrastructure in the region to ensure we are ready when our national security systems demand it.”
Construction Camera 03/04/11
Construction Camera 03/04/11 a video by U.S. Army Security Assistance Command on Flickr.
Time-lapse video of the new HQ buildings from the week of March 4, 2011.
Construction Camera 02/25/11
Time-lapse video of the new HQ buildings from the week of Feb. 25, 2011.
AMC senior leaders tour new home
Gen. Ann E. Dunwoody, AMC commanding general, Thomas Vajentic, chief of AMC transformation team, Mike Edwards, lead engineer on balcony at the future AMC headquarters in Huntsville, Ala. Feb 23. US Army photo by Rick Sims, AMC public Affairs.
REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. — The U.S. Army Materiel Command’s leadership took a survey of its nearly completed headquarters here, Feb 23.
Gen. Ann E. Dunwoody, AMC’s commanding general, Lt. Gen. James H. Pillsbury, AMC’s deputy commanding general, Command Sergeant Major Jeffrey J. Mellinger, AMC senior non-commissioned officer, and several senior executive service members from around the command stepped into the doors of their new facility, many for the first time.
The tour was another check mark in AMC’s BRAC process from Fort Belvoir, Va. to Redstone Arsenal, Ala. prompted by 2005 BRAC law. Personnel began relocating to the Tennessee Valley in 2006 and the command will be completely relocated by the summer of 2011.
Currently, AMC has approximately 768 personnel stationed at Redstone Arsenal awaiting the grand opening of their new six-story facility.
Also nearly completed is the adjoining three-story facility that will serve as the future home of the U.S. Army Security Assistance Command, one of AMC’s major subordinate commands.
AMC impacts or has a presence in all 50 states and 155 countries world-wide to ensure the decisive edge of the warfighters in technology, acquisition support, materiel development, logistics power projection and sustainment.
Construction Camera 02/18/11
Time-lapse video of the new HQ buildings from the week of Feb. 18, 2011.
Construction Camera 02/10/11
Time-lapse video of the new HQ buildings from the week of Feb. 10, 2011.
2011: Implementation!
Six Years After the Announcement, the 2005 BRAC Nears Completion at Redstone
Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce’s “Initiatives” Magazine – After nearly six years of preparation, construction and recruiting, the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure decision that moved several new military commands and thousands of civilian jobs to Redstone Arsenal will be completed on Sept. 15, 2011.
As a result, Redstone and the impacted commands are in the fi nal implementation stage. Nationally, all BRAC relocations are to be completed Sept. 15, 2011. And according to Redstone officials, the implementation schedule will be met locally. For the incoming commands, that means completing those facilities that are still under construction and filling them with workers.
Several of the facilities have already been completed and are occupied, including the 2nd Recruiting Brigade and the 2nd Medical Recruiting Battalion. Also two large commands have already relocated headquarters to Redstone – including the three-star U.S. Army Space & Missile Defense Command (SMDC) and the two-star U.S. Army Security Assistance Command (USASAC).
Still under construction but close to completion is the four-star U.S. Army Materiel Command (AMC) 400,000 square-foot headquarters facility and the newest addition to the Von Braun Complex – the 840,000 squarefoot VB III that will house the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and some SMDC workers. The Redstone Test Center (RTC) has new facilities, including a 161,000 square-foot research and testing rotary wing facility/hangar and a 37,800 square foot rotary wing administrative facility.
And bringing a four-star command means making room for its band. The AMC Band, which serves soldiers and civilians of AMC stationed at more than 140 locations worldwide, celebrated a ribbon cutting on its new facility at Redstone in late January.
But more important than the buildings are the people that will fill them. The most critical and often most difficult factor in implementing BRAC is convincing the people who had the jobs to relocate with the organization. The Tennessee Valley community has fared better than any community in the nation in convincing employees to relocate to Redstone to keep their jobs. This was true in 1995 and once again the region is poised to exceed national standards.
The success in recruiting is thanks in part to efforts of the Tennessee Valley BRAC Committee, consisting of community leaders from counties across north Alabama and southern Tennessee, who partnered with the impacted commands to actively recruit workers to follow the jobs to Redstone. Thanks to assistance from the State of Alabama, Tennessee Valley BRAC representatives traveled to those commands and met with the impacted workers to show them they were wanted and needed at Redstone.
Since that announcement, the committee made numerous workforce recruitment trips to meet with workers, to address their questions, to discuss living and working in the Tennessee Valley and to discuss concerns, issues or provide information to those workforce candidates who were unfamiliar with the region. The Tennessee Valley BRAC Committee recently logged its final Town Hall recruitment effort at Ft. Belvoir. The three-day event capped a final push to reach out to those workers who are still contemplating the move. One of the great selling points for those workers has been Redstone, according to Tennessee Valley BRAC Committee Chairman Joe Ritch.
“Redstone Arsenal is a regional economic hub – people live all over the Tennessee Valley and work at Redstone Arsenal. It is a diverse technology research and development federal campus and it just makes sense to move certain high tech functions here where the capabilities can continue to grow in support of our soldiers and in support of our regional economy,” Ritch said.
Those efforts seem to be paying off. So far, 3,505 positions of the roughly 4,700 positions have been realigned. Of those 3,505 positions, 2,906 (about 83 percent) have been filled. And of those 2,906 positions that have been filled, 55 percent have come from outside the Tennessee Valley, easing some fears that the organizations at Redstone would be cannibalizing their respective workforce. Once all positions have been filled, Redstone will have a noticeably different workforce.
According to officials with the Redstone Garrison Command, the projected breakdown of the Redstone workforce in 2011 will be:
- Active soldiers: 1,000
- Government civilian workers: 18,800
- Government contractor workers: 17,000
- 13 General Officers
- 121 Senior Executive Service members (2nd highest in the country)
But while the official federal BRAC process nears completion, that implementation is only the beginning for the possibility of an even larger contractor support surge resulting from these commands moving to Redstone. The Huntsville/Madison County community is still growing from the 1995 BRAC decisions that brought U.S. Army aviation to Redstone and merged it with the U.S. Army Missile Command to form the Army’s Aviation and Missile Command (AMCOM). If the 1995 BRAC were to be used as an indicator, the 2005 BRAC will likewise result in continued growth for years to come.
Consider the following: since 2000 the Huntsville Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes Madison and Limestone counties, has accounted for 24 percent of the state’s entire population growth. During that same period the area has also led the state with a net job growth of 24,200 for perspective. Montgomery was next behind Huntsville with 2,300 in that same period.
And since the 1995 BRAC announcement, the Huntsville MSA has led the state in announced jobs from new and expanding industries in 12 of 15 years and was second in the three years it did not lead. So clearly BRAC has had a positive impact on the local economy over the past 15 years. But that kind of growth can create other challenges as well, as Garrison Commander John Hamilton pointed out at the recent BRAC to the Future IV event at the Von Braun Center.
Hamilton challenged the community not to be content with the gains, but to use the growth as a catalyst for continued improvements in infrastructure and K-12 education.
“Let’s not focus on the September 15 milestone,” Hamilton informed attendees. “We want to make sure our vision is focused on much more growth than what is defined by the BRAC committee. We have the ability to create synergies here in this community that are related to BRAC, but are not part of the BRAC. September 15 doesn’t mean we are done by any stretch.”
Hamilton pointed out the importance the Redstone Gateway development should play in the continued growth of the community. Redstone Gateway is a mixed-use development surrounding Gate 9 that will create 4.6 million square feet of office, academic, retail, and entertainment space – part of which will be accessible to the general public, part of which will be secured space behind a new Gate 9 for the government.
“Redstone Gateway is an important crossroads between Redstone and the community,” Hamilton said. “And it is an important part of creating more economic growth in the community.”
Hamilton challenged the community to work to leverage the “transformational strategies” that will exist at Redstone. Those strategies include:
- Materiel Management & Acquisition – which includes organizations such as AMC, the Aviation and Missile Command, USASAC, ACC, ECC and the program executive offices for aviation and missiles and space.
- Space Operations and Missile Defense – which includes the U.S. Army Space & Missile Command, MDA and NASA.
- Intelligence & Homeland Defense – which includes the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Missile Space Intelligence Center, the FBI and the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
- Research, Development, Test & Evaluation – which includes the Aviation & Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center and the Redstone Test Center.
“These can be a catalyst for growth. We need to use these transformational synergies – we should see more on that list in the future and I expect that there will be.”
At the same event, AMC Brig. Gen. John Wharton also briefed attendees on AMC’s status and said the focus is not only to get the facility completed and the people moved, but also to do so in a seamless transition that causes no disruption of day-to-day operations.
Wharton said the command employees were excited to be moving to Redstone and promised attendees they would be impressed by the attention and opportunities that a four-star command brings. Not many communities have the luxury of having the headquarters of a 70,000-employee company or organization located there.
“AMC issued $92 billion in contracts in fiscal year 2010,” he said. “We have 70,000 employees worldwide and a $49 billion annual budget.” He said that if AMC were a company, it would rank 42nd on the Fortune 500 list of largest companies.
And not many communities can boast of having a four-star command. General Ann Dunwoody is expected to move to Redstone and will report to duty in March. She is the first woman in U.S. military and uniformed service history to achieve a four-star officer grade.
Wharton said the community outreach to assist AMC with the transition has made a difference.
“Thank you for what you are doing to make this transition easy for us. We are on schedule and we are very excited about the move – it presents a tremendous opportunity for us.”
Harvey Player, special assistant to the executive director of MDA, also briefed the audience and informed attendees the move was on schedule.
“Things are going well and we thank you for assistance as we near implementation,” Player said.
One of the ways the MDA move will benefit the area and the state is with the high tech jobs they are adding to the community in addition to the high tech MDA workforce that was already here.
“MDA has high-tech jobs – and high salaries. We recruit nationally to bring in the best and brightest. The economic impact is significant. We estimate the added payroll associated with the moves to Redstone to be $245 million in fiscal year 2011,” Player said. “MDA will remain a growth area for Huntsville and by the completion of BRAC, the majority of MDA activities will be located in Huntsville.”
Last to speak at this event was Derrick Boegner, vice president of asset management, Corporate Office Properties Trust, who discussed the Redstone Gateway development.
“This is the largest enhanced use lease being developed in the country right now, and we are very close to developing our first couple of buildings,” he said. “There is a lot of demand right now and we will be working with the Garrison on those plans.”
Of interest – he pointed out that more than 70 percent of the top 50 defense contractors are COPT tenants – meaning there is great interest from contractors for additional office space to go along with the plans that current and future government tenants have for additional office space. As BRAC 2005 nears completion, the challenges do not end. Capitalizing on the new capabilities mixed with the current capabilities, across government and business, mixed with the community’s will to makes positive changes and meet all infrastructure needs is critical, Hamilton reminded attendees.
“This is no time to sit down. Our regional growth is outpacing our current capacities,” he said. “If we want to continue to recruit quality workforce, you can be sure they will be measuring every area of our community to make sure we can meet their needs. We have to ask ourselves these questions: Are we going to continue recruiting highly educated people such as scientists and engineers? Are we preparing our children, right now, to work in these kinds of jobs at Redstone Arsenal? Are we doing the things necessary to make that happen? We have things to do. We are good. We can be great. So I hope we look at 2011 not as a finish line, but as a benchmark.”
AMC on the web
USASAC on the web
