
DATE: Sunday, September 7, 1997             TAG: 9709010174

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D4   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: HAMPTON ROADS ALMANAC '97
SOURCE: BY EARL SWIFT, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   69 lines

MILITARY LOOKING AT A BIGGER SLICE OF A SMALLER PIE HAMPTON ROADS LOST 8,000 ACTIVE-DUTY SAILORS AND ANOTHER 2,400 CIVILIAN WORKERS DURING 1996.

Early summer brought a surprising revelation from the Navy: During 1996, the seagoing service had seen its local ranks shrink by 8,000 active-duty sailors and another 2,400 civilian workers.

While news that the Navy had declined in size raised few eyebrows, the magnitude of the drop certainly did - even among economists, political leaders and military experts numbed by America's long-running military drawdown.

Though more dramatic than most one-year shifts in the region's military population, 1996 served a reminder that change will be a constant as the Cold War recedes in memory.

Some of those changes will be good news, among them the Navy's plans to relocate 10 squadrons of F/A-18 Hornets - some 175 jets, their crews, ground personnel and families - from Florida to Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach.

Those moves, scheduled to begin in 1998, will bring thousands to the area as the Navy consolidates its East Coast holdings.

And Hampton Roads can probably count on profiting from any consolidations of bases or units that might result from another round of Navy base closings - a prospect Congress is loath to consider, but which the armed forces regard as vital to maintaining their muscle.

But Hampton Roads' growth in military importance will not, necessarily, translate into economic bliss: In all likelihood, the region will be home to a bigger slice of a smaller military pie.

Most of last year's Navy personnel losses were attributed to a drop in the number of ships stationed here: 120 in 1996, compared with 131 in 1995. The fleet's warships will likely continue to decline in number, though at a slower rate.

The Atlantic Fleet's surface force, strapped for cash, has adopted a policy of ``just-in-time readiness'' that defers maintenance on some warships - a development which, if it becomes a long-term practice, could affect local shipyard workers, civilian and military.

And while a new round of base closings poses little threat to the Navy here - the service has borne the brunt of the closings so far - the fate of local bases maintained by other services is far less certain.

The coming months promise to be rife with trade-offs, such as the one that will change the rotation at the Norfolk Naval Station's carrier piers in 1998. The carrier Nimitz, now based in Bremerton, Wash., is headed to Hampton Roads next spring. Come March, however, Norfolk will bid farewell to the Navy's newest carrier, the John C. Stennis, which will embark on a globe-girding deployment that ends at a new West Coast home. MEMO: BUSINESS ALMANAC ILLUSTRATION: Graphics

10 squadrons of F/A-18 Hornets - some 175 jets, their crews,

ground personnel and families - are scheduled to move from Florida

to Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach.

In 1996, 120 ships were based here, compared with 131 in 1995.

Next spring, the carrier Nimitz will move to Hampton Roads from

Washington, but the carrier John C. Stennis will leave.

The Virginian-Pilot

MILITARY EMPLOYMENT IN HAMPTON ROADS

SOURCE: Naval Base, Norfolk

DEFENSE PROCUREMENT CONTRACTS

[For complete graphics, please see microfilm]