Air Force Plan to Move Satellite Unit Stuns Officials : El Segundo: Civic leaders are surprised and dismayed by the announcement. They say the transfer of several hundred high-paying scientific and engineering jobs is certain to hurt the local economy.
Just when South Bay civic leaders were hoping they had endured the economy’s last punch to the gut, the Air Force landed another one Friday.
Several hundred key employees of the Office of Special Projects, which oversees development of the Air Force’s top-secret spy satellites, will be moved from the Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo to Washington, D.C., over the next few years, spokesmen confirmed.
Several hundred more employees of Aerospace Corp., a private, nonprofit research organization that works closely with the Air Force, are expected to follow them east as the move takes place.
Stunned and bewildered local officials, reeling from the loss in recent years of at least 20,000 aerospace jobs, say they do not know at this stage how serious an impact the Air Force decision will have on the area’s stumbling economy. But the loss of hundreds of high-paying scientific and engineering jobs, they say, does not bode well for the region’s all-important aerospace industry.
“We could use some good news in the South Bay and that’s not good news,” Torrance Mayor Katy Geissert said of the new round of job cuts. “It’s the ripple effect of the entire thing.”
Spokesmen at TRW, Aerospace Corp., Hughes and Rockwell all issued terse statements Friday saying the companies would have no comment until they had a chance to study the impact of the Air Force plan.
The Air Force was equally brief.
“While the exact number is still being finalized, the move would involve several hundred (Air Force) personnel and would take place over a period of years,” said a one-paragraph statement issued by the Air Force. “Appropriate consultation with (the Department of Defense) and Congress is under way. (The Office of Special Projects) will continue to maintain offices in Los Angeles. No other details are available.”
Special Projects personnel are among the most experienced and highly paid aerospace engineers, designers and managers in the South Bay, officials acknowledged.
Because most of the office’s 350 employees have worked in local aerospace for decades, they have strong ties to El Segundo and its neighboring cities. The loss of them and their families could deal a serious economic blow to the area.
Of even greater concern is that the move might signal renewed Air Force interest in shutting down the El Segundo base and relocating the base’s main tenant--the 2,600-employee Space and Missile Systems Center. The center, which supervises development of a wide range of military space hardware, is considered a linchpin of the local aerospace industry.
The military has talked in the past of closing the base and moving the space unit--possibly to Albuquerque, N.M., or Colorado Springs, Colo.--because of the high cost of housing and the traffic congestion in Los Angeles.
Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D-Riverside) acknowledged Friday that the El Segundo base “has been in trouble for a long time.” But the base and its space center is so crucial to the Southern California economy, Brown said, that the state’s entire congressional delegation has written to Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney asking that it be kept in El Segundo.
Brown said that in response to last week’s surprise news, he and other California congressmen would mobilize immediately, even though they are not now in session, to lobby against the transfer of the spy satellite unit. He warned, however, that money for spy satellites will be greatly reduced now that the United States no longer needs to monitor missile movements in the former Soviet Union.
State and city officials--long enlisted in the fight to hold onto the base--say they also will push to keep the spy satellite program in El Segundo.
“We have so much expert talent in this area it would be a crime to move it (the satellite program),” said state Sen. Robert G. Beverly (R-Manhattan Beach).
Beverly and Assemblyman Curtis Tucker Jr. (D-Inglewood) successfully pushed this year for legislation designed to help finance construction of 250 to 300 new housing units for the Air Force.
Twenty-three acres at Angels Gate Park in San Pedro has been made available for the project, which will go forward whether or not the Special Projects personnel leave, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores said.
“I have been assured that they would continue a strong presence here in El Segundo,” Flores said. “I’m hopeful that this isn’t some kind of a signal that they’re beginning to separate the various parts of the space division out.”
Tucker said he fears that is likely.
“It’s the first noticeable crack in the dike,” he said. “We were hoping that they would leave everything there. . . . For them to now say they’re moving the spy satellite division is an unfortunate first step.
“There’s a lot of ancillary businesses that support those people,” he said. “I’m talking about the TRWs and the Hughes all the way down to the mom-and-pop store that supplies the one widget.”
Despite the setback, Tucker said he and other officials will continue with the San Pedro housing plan in hope that no further military programs will be moved out. “We knew it was a risk,” he said. “We knew that what we were doing would have no guarantee that the Department of Defense wouldn’t move it anyway.”
South Bay city officials were taken by surprise at news of the Air Force’s plans.
El Segundo Mayor Carl Jacobson said he and other community leaders had a routine meeting with base officers last Tuesday at which there was no hint of the Special Projects move.
Although stunned by the news, Jacobson said the loss of the spy satellite division is not the same as losing the space and missile center.
“The base manages a heck of a lot more than this one secret operation,” he said. Development of weather satellites, communications systems, navigational satellites and a number of rocket boosters are supervised by the space and missile center’s 2,600 employees.
Business leaders, however, were concerned that last week’s announcement might mark the beginning of a steady withdrawal of the highly prized space and missile center and the eventual closure of the base.
“It’s the major procurement facility for the Air Force,” said Ron Lamb, director of government relations for the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce.
“This is very serious,” said LeRon Gubler, president of the South Bay Assn. of Chambers of Commerce. “This has been the top priority of our association for the last two years to keep the base.”
Beyond the pain of the immediate job losses, Gubler said, is the concern that the Air Force might be cutting back on the procurement functions essential to the South Bay’s economy.
A fact sheet released by Air Force personnel estimated that the base’s contracts wield a $5.4-billion impact within a 100-mile radius of El Segundo.
“It doesn’t look like a typical Air Force base,” Gubler said of the facility. “Most people don’t even know it’s there. But it has a greater impact economically than any other base in the country.”
