Group has facts, figures after tough '90s encounter
Sunday, January 01, 2006
The last time Huntsville began trying to woo big-city federal workers being displaced by a BRAC, it wasn't pretty.
Several Tennessee Valley ambassadors setting out to court defense workers in Washington, D.C., later this month plan to show they learned a lesson from that uncomfortable encounter.
In the mid-1990s, thousands of Defense Department employees and contractors were happy in St. Louis, and they had no desire to move to Huntsville - or anywhere else - when the Base Realignment and Closure Commission told the Aviation and Troop Command it was relocating here.
So when a Huntsville-plugging group from the Chamber of Commerce showed up in Missouri to tell them how nice things could be for them down South, it didn't get a warm welcome.
Lawyer Joe Ritch went on the first "town hall meeting" trip to St. Louis back then, and he's now the co-chairman of the Tennessee Valley BRAC Committee that's pursuing thousands of soon-to-be-displaced defense workers from the Washington area.
"It was awful and awkward," Ritch said of the St. Louis meeting. "They weren't happy, and they intentionally asked questions to embarrass us.
"I understand it's a tough situation to be told to move or lose your job. It's sort of like being told you have a fatal illness. But this time, we're going to be more prepared to answer what they ask."
Ritch said the latest figures suggest that 4,715 jobs will move here over the next few years, courtesy of BRAC. Historically, only 30 percent of people move with such jobs.
"These jobs are for highly educated people who can get a security clearance," he said. "We need as many of these people to move with their jobs as possible.
"We have a lot of misperceptions to overcome, and not a lot of time to do it. The people in D.C. and Virginia believe they're in an outstanding part of the country, and they don't necessarily believe that we are."
The first wave of Missile Defense Agency jobs from D.C. is expected to come to Redstone Arsenal this summer. On Jan. 10 and 11, almost 50 representatives will tout the Tennessee Valley at town hall meetings put on by MDA at a hotel in Arlington, Va.
More than 450 defense workers are invited. They'll be shown a video that extols the benefits of North Alabama and south Tennessee, and then they'll be free to ask questions.
The people going on the trip know they'll be seriously quizzed most on education, real estate and leisure activities.
Ritch said the workers are tech-savvy and have already checked out Huntsville on the Internet. When they visit with the Tennessee Valley delegation, "they're going to want facts and figures. If we say we have good schools, they'll want us to have something to back that up with."
Loren Traylor, vice president of investor relations at the Chamber of Commerce of Huntsville and Madison County, has helped coach some of the locals who will go on the trip. She's arranged to have a few "dry run" town hall meetings next week with people pretending to be from Washington asking difficult questions.
"We won't be going up there cold," she said. "We're letting them know that it might get a little awkward. We'll be ready."
Traylor, a former New Yorker, plans to use her experiences of moving to Huntsville when she meets with defense workers. She plans to tell them that although many cities are great places to visit, the Tennessee Valley is a great, easy place to live.
"Ten years have passed since St. Louis," Traylor said. "This area has more going for it now. Since then, Huntsville has gotten a lot of attention for being a great city to live and work."
For instance, it was ranked as one of America's Top Business Cities by Forbes Magazine, it has the fifth-highest concentration of computer software-related workers in the country, and it was named the top U.S. city for black Americans to live.
Mike Ward, vice president of governmental affairs for the chamber, said a five-year plan will be released early this year that will give a clearer idea about which command and agency will relocate here. It's already believed that the Army Space and Missile Defense Command will move jobs to Redstone in early 2007.
The moves will involve $500 million to $600 million in construction.
The local BRAC committee has about $150,000 to spend on recruiting efforts, and the chamber is planning two or three more of these town hall meeting trips this year. Each community sending representatives - such as Athens-Limestone County or Fayetteville-Lincoln Co., Tenn. - is paying for airfare, hotel and other expenses.
"We're being conservative with the funds," Traylor said. "This money has got to last."
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