THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 6, 1996 TAG: 9601060233
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: By KATRICE FRANKLIN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
City officials, academics and a legislator toured a military war games center here Friday hoping to get state funding to create a technology hub nearby.
They left eager to build a civilian counterpart that would work with the newly opened Joint Training Analysis and Simulation Center.
The Virginia Modeling and Simulation Center would enable businesses and educators to tap into the military's vast computing and modeling resources.
It would be run by Old Dominion University, which is seeking $750,000 from the state to get the project started and another $1 million a year for the next five to seven years.
The Joint Training center, which moved to Suffolk about a year ago, is where the military uses computers, models and simulators to develop, test and study war operations.
The new state center would serve as a liaison between the military and private businesses. ODU would help industries use clones of the military's computers and models in their daily practices. The university also would set up a graduate studies program to teach this new technology.
A businessman can use a computer modeling program to determine if a decision to hire two new staffers will help or hurt his company at the end of the year, one of the military tour guides explained. A medical school may use a simulation model to train doctors.
``I think it would fantastic for Hampton Roads,'' said state Sen. Richard J. Holland, D-Windsor, who was the only legislator to show up for the tour. ``Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars is no small amount of money, but for something that appears to be that good for the area, we ought to try to get that money.''
Del. Robert Nelms, R-Suffolk, who had other commitments and could not attend, agreed.
``It sounds like a good idea. I certainly would be in support of it,'' he said. ``It would add to the educational tools for this area and region. I hope we can provide the tools it needs.''
U.S. Rep Norman Sisisky, D-4th, who helped bring the military center to Suffolk, also supported a state offshoot.
Capt. Shawn M. Smith, chief of staff with the U.S. Atlantic Command, which oversees the Suffolk Center, said the military is open to sharing the technology, in the hope that it will drive down the cost of the computer simulators and modeling programs.
``Our primary mission is to train, and if we have to build simulators to do that, we won't be able to stay focused on that mission,'' Smith said. ``We have to look down the road to see how we can make this stuff cheaper and how we can make it last longer. We want to be buyers rather than developers.''
Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia have shown an interest in working with ODU to set up the state facility.
``We need universities to provide graduate courses in this area to help attract the kind of people we need to this area,'' said Eugene Newman, the center's acting director. ``We can also deal with the academic community better than with individual companies.
City, university and military officials say a civilian center would bring new businesses to the region, thereby creating jobs, new tax revenues and an overall boost to economic development. They cite Central Florida as an example, where a modeling and simulation institute was established 14 years ago.
That center, which was started in 1982, attracted 140 companies and more than $180 million in economic development in eight years, said Roland Mielke, who chairs the department of electrical and computer engineering at ODU. The university sent two representatives to the Orlando-based institute to get ideas for the proposed Suffolk center.
Mielke said ODU has already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in personnel and research to develop the concept.
``We're looking at seeing $180 million in seven years in economic development for this region,'' Mielke said. ``We've been talking to companies like IBM who would be interested in this area if this center opened.''i
Suffolk officials have been searching for a temporary building to house the proposed center. ODU and military officials agree that the center should be located next to the Joint Training facility, off I-664 just south of the Monitor-Merrimac Bridge Tunnel.
The taxes generated by the center could be used to offset city spending, City Manager Myles E. Standish said by CNB