Metro Areas Show Growth
Thanks to Randy Lacey at Grubb & Ellis | Levy Beffort for this “Good News Friday” article. Click on the link to read a PDF of the article on economic growth.
Metros Expand 072310
Tinker AFB Jobs as of July 21, 2010
Tinker AFB Jobs as of July 21, 2010 from USA Jobs. CLICK HERE.
Tinker AFB Hiring Plan 2009 – 2012
Click HERE to download the Tinker Air Force Base Hiring Plan 2009 -2012This information was presented by Bill Swigert, HR Director for the OC-ALC, at the June 16, 2010 meeting of the Central Oklahoma Workforce Investment Board.
Aviation Week Report Spells Long-Term Good News for Tinker Area Economy
Aviation Week
By Michael Bruno
Phoenix
Looking over the next decade, the U.S. military maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) market faces the greatest growth spurt ever experienced—and also the greatest change, including a fundamental reshaping of industry’s relationship with government.
The U.S. military aviation MRO market, now about $43 billion with $11 billion in sustainment spending,should expand as prolonged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to wear and tear on an increasinglyaging array of military equipment. At the same time, Washington’s acquisition reform agenda, coupled with stretched federal budgets, is setting up a potential overhaul of the workshare between industry and government, regardless of already strained military depot capacity.
“I don’t think anyone here is going to be looking for work in the near future,” USAF Gen. (ret.) Charles Wald, now a director and senior adviser at Deloitte Services, said at Aviation Week’s MRO Military 2010 conference here in April.
Last year the Air Force started reclaiming government management over upkeep of its large fighter, transport and unmanned aircraft fleets—a move that could stunt efforts from companies looking to reap high profits from the maintenance business (AWST Feb. 1, p. 34). And USAF Secretary Michael Donley told Aviation Week last November the armed service is spending too much money on support contracts, and that some industry work may be subject to fixed-price contracts or be shifted back to government entities for execution to contain costs. Nevertheless, while defense depots are operating under financial constraints and are currently “stressed” by the tempo of work from Iraq and Afghanistan, several Pentagon officials also see vast potential for more “partnerships” with industry.
“There’s room for more work in our depots,” Gregg Fogarty, deputy to the assistant deputy undersecretary of Defense for maintenance policy and programs, said at the conference. “We need to increase our partnerships.”
Others agree that military depots have the ability to grow their capacity, if only by better organizing existing workload. “Although challenges exist to MRO operations due to size, complexity and organizational alignment, we believe the Defense Department has the opportunity to reap significant productivity gains from a network methodology, specifically through tapping underutilized capacity,” says Dennis Schultz, a Deloitte director.
Indeed, Lt. Gen. Loren Reno, deputy chief of staff for USAF logistics, installations and missions support, said that by the end of the decade, air logistics centers probably will be smaller in size—although not in number or geographic diversity—and performing different kinds of work than they do now for a worldwide deployed force.
For instance, Reno said due to improvements in information technology and transportation, he sees USAF bases increasingly requesting parts and work from the depots—rather than bases trying to do as much maintenance themselves. In the Air Force of today and the foreseeable future, base commanders just cannot afford to own—as they once might have sought—every capability they need.
Reno said he did not foresee the Air Force taking all depot work inhouse, but he took the opportunity of his conference keynote to press contractors to meet their commitments. “Deliver; deliver; deliver on your promises,” the general said. “Gone are the days when we have a backup for you.”
Still, the real pressure on contractors is coming more from the Obama administration’s so-called insourcing effort. As part of a broader effort to rein in spending growth and schedule slippages, the Defense Department plans to increase the size of its acquisition workforce by shifting 11,000 contractor employees to the government payroll and hiring an additional 9,000 government acquisition professionals by 2015 (AWST Aug. 24, 2009, p. 58). Acquisition services providers have complained of a “war on contractors,” and cite the costs of poaching private sector workers and adding to the government payroll.
But more important, the government is not limited to just acquisition workers and with the Air Force’s drive to build up “core capability” and cut services spending, no one knows where it will end. Insourcing predominated conference panels and discussions here, with audience members expressing confusion and dismay over seemingly mixed messages from Washington.
“There’s a lot of completely different perspectives on this, depending on what side of the fence you are on,” observed AeroStrategy principal Hal Chrisman.
One inflection point likely will emerge by the end of this year when Pentagon officials give Congress a “study on future depot capability,” which among other changes could rewrite the existing 50/50 work-share requirement between industry and the military. The study, mandated by a section of the 2009 defense authorization act, calls for an independent, quantitative assessment of the government capability needed for depot-level maintenance in the “post-reset” environment, after major combat operations end in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the study also is supposed to propose changes.
“The report provided by the independent entity would include recommendations on the requirement for an enduring organic depot capability, appropriate changes to law, and incentives to achieve efficiency and cost-effectiveness,” according to the law. “It also would include a proposed road map to meet materiel readiness goals of availability, reliability, total ownership cost and repair-cycle time.”
Fogarty said the study provides an opportunity to introduce a new “construct” in government-industry depot relations.
Others, like USAF Gen. (ret.) William Begert, now vice president of business development and aftermarket services at Pratt & Whitney, also hope there could be a new model for everyone to follow. Industry may fear government insourcing and the government may fear getting ripped off, but both sides must cooperate better to maintain and return critical equipment to combatants. Currently neither side has faith in the current blueprint, according to Begert.
“The system right now is broken.”
Copyright ? 2010 Aviation Week, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies
Organizational Changes Impact Air Logistic Centers
Organizational Facelift
—Michael C. Sirak
May 14, 2010—Air Force Materiel Command is adopting a new organizational construct built on directorates, divisions, and branches to operate, officials believe, more effectively at acquiring and sustaining the service’s weapon systems.
Later this year, most AFMC units will shed their current command structures based on wings, groups, and squadrons in place since 2004.
The command, headquartered at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, aims to establish more clear lines of authority and accountability via these changes. This goal is one of the pillars of the Air Force-wide acquisition improvement plan, or AIP, that was launched in May 2009 to address shortcomings in the service’s acquisition community and bolster that workforce’s numbers.
Air Force headquarters approved the AFMC conversion plan on May 11. The targeted implementation date is June 30. AFMC officials say all of the command’s centers will see some changes, but the realignment will be manpower-neutral, meaning no jobs lost or gained.
Gen. Donald Hoffman, AFMC boss, hinted back in February that these changes were coming. As far back as fall 2009, officials with the Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom AFB, Mass., one of AFMC’s product centers, also predicated such moves.
On the surface, it may appear that AFMC is simply reverting to the directorate-based structure that it had prior to 2004 when it took on the wing model. But AFMC officials say that’s not the case.
Back in 2004, the belief was that by more closely mirroring the operational Air Force in organization, AFMC would improve efficiencies and speed the introduction of new technologies to airmen. That didn’t fully pan out.
Under the new realignment, AFMC officials say an extensive list of wings, groups, and squadrons will be inactivated, activated, or re-designated. These changes act upon the Air Force’s new guidelines, issued in September 2009, that mandate that wings now must contain 1,000 or more members; groups, 400; and squadrons, 35.
Hoffman said most of the command’s units are not large enough to maintain the appropriate wing, group, and squadron designations under the new guidelines.
Plus, he explained, “Combining units to meet the size thresholds would have been major surgery and would have buried senior acquisition leadership at the squadron level or below.”
Wings, groups, or squadrons inactivated will be replaced by new directorates, divisions, and branches, which do not have mandatory minimum manning thresholds.
Along with changing to directorates, several new program executive officer positions have been created to lead many of the directorates at the product centers.
AFMC organizations switching to the directorate-based model are the: Aeronautical Systems Center at Wright-Patterson; Air Armament Center (excluding the 46th Test Wing) at Eglin AFB, Fla.; Air Force Security Assistance Center at Wright-Patterson; Arnold Engineering and Development Center at Arnold AFB, Tenn.; and Hanscom’s ESC.
For example, ASC is building five directorates: agile combat support, fighters/bombers, intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance/special operations forces, mobility, and tanker.
ASC commander Lt. Gen. Tom Owen will also serve as PEO for Aircraft overseeing those five directorates. He said in a May 12 release these adjustments would “significantly improve communication and oversight of programs.”
Among the changes at AFMC’s three air logistics centers, aerospace/aircraft sustainment wings will be inactivated and replaced with aerospace sustainment directorates. These three depots are at: Hill AFB, Utah, Robins AFB, Ga., and Tinker AFB, Okla. The maintenance wings at these locations will be unaffected, said AFMC officials.
They also noted that the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center at Kirtland AFB, N.M., will retain its 498th Nuclear Systems Wing, but some of the center’s groups and squadrons will be inactivated.
(Includes Wright-Patterson release) (For background on AFMC’s switch to the wing structure in 2004, see Operational Acquisition from the archives of Air Force Magazine.)
New Sponsors Help AeroEOC Fund Tradeshow Participation
A big thanks to Matherly Mechanical Contractors and Tinker Business & Industrial Park for becoming a sponsor of the Eastern Oklahoma County MRO & Aerospace Partnership (AeroEOC).
Promote your business to our national audience. Check out the info below.
Email david.burnett@midwestcityok.com for more information.
Can they Serve: Comment on the American Youth Pool
Can They Serve?: Undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness Clifford Stanley told lawmakers last week that, although recruiting has been good, that may not persist given the fact that “much of the contemporary youth population is currently ineligible to serve” in the military. The primary reasons he cited were obesity (about 35 percent), followed by drug or alcohol abuse (18 percent) and, lumped together at 23 percent, criminal misbehavior, too many dependents for entry rank, or low test scores. Air Force officials have expressed similar concern about the dwindling youth pool. The good news, according to data in Stanley’s written testimony, is that USAF still attracts the cream of this slim crop; 84 percent of potential USAF recruits scored at or above the 50th percentile of the Armed Forces Qualification Test, with the Navy nearest at 78 percent.
Courtesy of the Air Force Association:
For current Air Force intelligence, subscribe to the AFA Daily Report eNewsletter:
Copyright Air Force Association
1501 Lee Highway, Arlington, VA. 22209-1198. Phone (703) 247-5800
San Antonio Aerospace Sector Could Lose Work to Tinker AFB
City’s aerospace industry faces loss of Defense contracts By David Hendricks San Antonio Express-News 3/16/2010
San Antonio could lose a big component of its $4 billion-a-year aerospace industry if the government continues to in-source categories of work now performed by large contractors such as Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp., leaders from Port San Antonio and the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce warned Tuesday.
A threat to the engine repair, maintenance and overhaul work performed at Port San Antonio is emerging at Oklahoma City’s Tinker AFB, said Jim Perschbach, chairman of the chamber’s aerospace committee.
Tinker last year won a $5 million federal allocation that could be used to build a foundation for a new $250 million engine test cell similar to the one that exists at the San Antonio industrial park, said Perschbach, a partner in the San Antonio office of the Bracewell & Giuliani law firm.
The San Antonio test cell, owned by Port San Antonio, is the only one in the U.S. that can test the size of rebuilt engines used by the military’s largest aircraft, he added.
“We don’t see the benefit to taxpayers to duplicate construction of a new test cell.”
Federal law requires that no more than 50 percent of all maintenance, repair and overhaul work on certain military aircraft be conducted by private contractors. As the military begins a transition to a new airborne tanker, the Pentagon could decide to shift maintenance of those engines to its “core” category, meaning private contractors could not bid for the work, said Andres Gutierrez, a consultant with CloudStreak Consulting.
To date, work on jet fighters was considered “core” because of national security concerns, but work on tankers, transports and trainers was categorized as available for private contractors because those aircraft had commercial capabilities, Gutierrez told the San Antonio Express-News Editorial Board on Tuesday.
“All the tea leaves are aimed in that direction,” Gutierrez said of the possibility that engine work could be re-categorized. “If we go to sleep, if we don’t talk about this issue, the work could go away.”
During next week’s “S.A. to D.C.” trip to the nation’s capital, organized by the Greater San Antonio and San Antonio Hispanic chambers of commerce, business leaders will try to learn if the Obama administration’s budget proposal for the coming fiscal year contains funding for a new military-operated engine test cell.
Port San Antonio is home to 17 aerospace companies that employ about 4,300 workers. San Antonio has about 10,300 aerospace workers, generating an annual economic ripple effect of $4 billion a year, according to the industry’s latest report.
About 70 percent of the industrial park’s income stems from leases by companies performing engine and airframe contracts for the Defense Department, said Wayne Alexander, the port’s board chairman.
Thanks to Harve Allen at the Oklahoma Aeronautics Commission for forwarding this article.
General Dynamics Selected
General Dynamics has been selected to plan and produce
2010 Tinker and Primes National Business Event
The Midwest City Chamber of Commerce has selected General Dynamics Information Technology, a business unit of General Dynamics (NYSE: GD), to plan, produce and manage the 2010 Tinker and the Primes National Business Event.
General Dynamics will handle all pre-event planning for the event, including marketing the event locally, registering attendees and exhibitors, coordinating event logistics, recruiting sponsors and exhibitors, developing the program and conducting on-site management.
The Tinker and the Primes National Business Event will be held November 8-10, 2010 in Midwest City, Oklahoma. The objective of the event isto promote and facilitate economic development in the region, with an emphasis on business to business opportunities and contracting services to Tinker Air Force Base.
“The Midwest City Chamber of Commerce is committed to creating and maintaining a favorable business climate for the community,” said David Burnett, Economic Development Director for the Chamber. “General Dynamics can provide the full service, high quality event promotion and management we need due to its strong team of graphic designers, webmasters, registration specialists, and Certified Meeting Professionals.”
“Our partnership with General Dynamics will enable us to produce a superior event that will assist business leaders in identifying current opportunities, learning more about government contracting and networking with key influentials in the aerospace and defense industries.”
The Tinker and the Primes National Business Event will be held November 8-10, 2010 at the Sheraton Midwest City Hotel at the Reed Conference Center in Midwest City,OK (Near Tinker AFB.)
New Event Contact Information
The Lead Event Coordinator for Tinker and the Primes 2010 is Cathy Griffith.
(937)254-7950 ext. 1139
The Exhibitor and Sponsor Coordinator is Victoria Hiatt.
(937)254-7950 ext. 1180
Tinker and the Primes Moves to Next Level for 2010
The Midwest City Chamber of Commerce is partnering with the Conference and Meeting Management Unit of General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT) to produce the Sixth Annual Tinker and the Primes National Business Event. This year’s event will be held November 8-10, 2010.
GDIT’s Certified Meeting Planners and year’s of experience in producing military/business conferences brings next level development to the 2010 event. A new logo and look have been developed. A new www.TinkerandthePrimes.com web site will be unveiled soon.
For more information on GDIT, visit their website at www.usasymposium.com/ and stay tuned for more new developments for Tinker and the Primes 2010.
Become a Tinker and the Primes Facebook Fan at:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Midwest-City-OK/Tinker-and-the-Primes-National-Business-Event/339593892356
New Event Contact Information
The Lead Event Coordinator for Tinker and the Primes 2010 is Cathy Griffith.
Cathy Griffith
(937)254-7950 ext. 1139
Cathy.Griffith@gdit.com
The Exhibitor and Sponsor Coordinator is Victoria Hiatt.
Victoria Hiatt
(937)254-7950 ext. 1180
Victoria.Hiatt@gdit.com