05/09/03
By SHELLY HASKINS
Times Business Editor shaskins@htimes.com
A new contract to develop tools to defeat weapons of mass destruction could result in new jobs for two government contractors in Huntsville.
SRS Technologies, based in Newport Beach, Calif., and Science Applications International Corp., based in San Diego, each have a one-fifth share of the $1.26 billion contract issued Tuesday by the federal Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
Dr. Harold Pastrick, corporate vice president of SRS Technologies and general manager of its systems technology group in Huntsville, said much of SRS' share of the work will be done here, and could result in the company's local employment increasing from a dozen people to more than 80. Pastrick will serve as the program manager for the "Weapons of Mass Destruction - Defeat Technology" contract for SRS Technologies.
"If we do our share, we're looking at 50-70 new jobs," Pastrick said.
SAIC, which has about 1,000 employees in Huntsville, hasn't determined yet how much of the work will be done in Huntsville, said Ron Zollars, SAIC's public affairs officer in San Diego. He said it's possible that the company will add employees here because of the contract.
SAIC won the Defense Threat Reduction Agency's first post-Sept. 11 contract for chemical and biological weapons defense efforts, and much of that work is done in Huntsville, Zollars said.
The companies will develop software and hardware that will help troops in the battlefield and emergency officials on the homefront defeat, or at least mitigate the effects of a chemical or biological attack, or make it safer for troops charged with destroying such weapons, Pastrick said.
For example, Pastrick said, if a soldier in Iraq were pinpointing a "bunker-buster" bombing of a building suspected of manufacturing sarin nerve gas, the technology SRS is developing would help make the operation safer.
The soldier, Pastrick said, would plug in variables into a laptop such as wind direction and speed, time of day, humidity levels. That information would be transmitted to his commanders, who would use SRS-developed equipment to determine the best conditions under which to launch the strike.
Based on all the variables, commanders might tell the troops in the field to put on their chemical attack gear, wait until the wind changes direction, or until the sun goes down, to send in the bombs.
With those precautions taken, "If there is indeed sarin gas in there, it dissipates in a manner that does not harm the troops," Pastrick said.
Or, if there is an attack on the Army's chemical weapons stockpile at Anniston Army Depot, the same system could be used to determine how to best evacuate citizens and deal with the situation, causing the least amount of harm, he said.
The same technology could be used to evaluate the possible effects of a chemical or biological attack on Redstone Arsenal, or even an attack on the Browns Ferry nuclear plant in Athens, Pastrick said.
"If you can understand your vulnerabilities, you can start developing ways to defend against them," Pastrick said.
The contract is shared by SRS Technologies, SAIC, Titan Corp. of Chatsworth, Calif., Applied Research Associates of Albuquerque, N.M., and Cubic Applications Inc. of Lacey, Wash. The contract period is for five years, with a possible five-year extension.
