THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, July 4, 1995 TAG: 9507040377
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines
A $57 million contract that may add 200 employees in Suffolk has been awarded to an Ohio-based company that will operate the U.S. Atlantic Command's Joint Training, Analysis and Simulation Center.
Gen. John J. Sheehan announced the award Monday for his command. He said TRW Inc., with headquarters in Cleveland and offices in Hampton, was to be notified of the award this week.
``This is great news for Suffolk and all of Hampton Roads,'' said Rep. Norman Sisisky, D-4th District, ``because we will gain high-skill, high-wage jobs.
``The (center) will fulfill its potential and be put to excellent use.''
Nearly two years ago, Sisisky had the unpleasant task of cutting the ribbon to open the new $27 million Suffolk complex on one day and closing the doors on its former tenant the next.
It originally had been built to house the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, which the 1993 Base Closure and Realignment Commission ordered moved to Newport, R.I.
The building is located at the Suffolk end of the Monitor-Merrimac Bridge-Tunnel and is designed to house large computer and electronic gear. The 220,000-square-foot complex has parking for nearly 1,000 vehicles, six satellite antennae on the roof, cafeteria space, a fitness and day-care center, and administrative spaces.
The Navy had been stuck with a 20-year lease on the building and faced a costly albatross until the U.S. Atlantic Command said it could use most of the complex for its simulation and training center.
Planners for the proposed Harbour View development near the intersection of Interstate 664 and Route 17 have said the new contract could mean a boon for their plans to build the largest residential community in Suffolk.
Monday's contract award had been anticipated as the final decision that will allow the center to set up and start running.
The complex has been described as a ``world-class technology center'' for the nation's military.
One advantage of having the center in Hampton Roads is that so many major commands are located here - among them the Army's Training and Doctrine Command, the Air Force's Air Combat Command and the Navy's Atlantic Fleet.
Joint task forces, along with their staffs, will come to the center and develop their operations, rehearse, study the lessons they learned and then try them out.
Whether it's another Haiti operation or conflict in Iraq, the nation's military battles in the future most likely will be tested and rehearsed at the rural Suffolk site.
With sophisticated computers and simulators, a Navy mine sweeper moored to a pier in Texas can be placed at the mouth of a strategic port in the war game. Likewise, ships, troop divisions, air wings and naval battle groups can participate, regardless of their actual locations.
Navy Capt. James C. Sherlock, who has directed the center's development for the past year, said last week that the first major test of the facility will be a computer-run exercise in November.
The building will be occupied by about 300 people at its peak - 200 of them civilian contractors provided by TRW Inc.
The contract has an estimated ceiling of $57 million, and not all of it will have to be spent.
The center will spend about $30 million to buy initial technology and install communications equipment, Sherlock has said. Later this year the command will spend $10 million more on operations and maintenance.
In fiscal 1996, the command will spend $40 million to $45 million on operations and training, he said. Of that, about $7 million will be to keep technology upgraded.
Beginning next summer, the command will perform about three large-scale exercises a year plus a half-dozen smaller simulations.
Then, in 1997, with even more advanced technology coming from a Pentagon agency, the center will install what it calls the latest in computers, simulators, laboratories and communications equipment.
KEYWORDS: MILITARY CONTRACT by CNB