Task force works to add military jobs for Tampa area

Retired Rear Adm. Jon Bayless Jr. sat at a table in the packed Tampa Convention Center's Exhibition Hall last month and listened to Adm. William McRaven talk about the technology and equipment U.S. Special Operations Command needs to remain a cutting-edge force.

To Bayless, McRaven's speech during the Army's cyber warfare conference could not have been more encouraging. Bayless, now the senior business development manager for Sypris Electronics, is heading up a Hillsborough County effort to turn the region's military connections into more jobs.

"You start to think about capabilities and platforms and the companies that produce these requirements," Bayless said. "As I am sitting there, I am listening to where Socom is headed and thinking about what we can do to support it."

Bayless is chairman of the Hillsborough County Economic Development Commission's Defense and Task Force, a group of military contractors, retired military personnel, government officials and representatives of local universities.

The task force, which started meeting this summer, is charged with finding more ways of tapping into the hundreds of billions of dollars the federal government spends each year on defense contracting.

The effort comes at a pivotal time.

The economy continues to tank and a congressional "super committee" is meeting to decide the fate of government spending. If the 12-member bipartisan committee cannot come to an agreement by Thanksgiving on how to reduce the deficit, it would trigger a half-trillion dollar cut in the Pentagon's budget over a 10-year-period that comes on top of a $350 million decrease previously mandated by the White House.

Closer to home, U.S. Central Command, which runs the war efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, is planning to trim about 1,000 jobs at its headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base as the war efforts in those countries wind down.

"Our intention is that these cuts will come from our temporary people who typically only spend a few months here," Centcom spokesman Maj. T.G Taylor said. "Overall, we must maintain our current capabilities and continue to improve those capabilities while working more efficiently."

Bayless, other local task force members and U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa, who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, have said the challenges only underscore the need to be proactive and tout what the Bay area has to offer.

"The Tampa Bay area must play to its strengths in creating jobs," Castor said. "The defense industry is one of Tampa Bay's strengths."

Even with the looming Centcom job cuts, MacDill is a powerful economic engine.

In tough times, "companies tend to consolidate," Bayless said. "The fact that we have this nugget in town – MacDill Air Force Base with its two combatant commands – offers a lot of reasons to like this area."

But there's a lot more here as well.

In addition to Socom and Centcom, MacDill has the 6th Air Mobility Wing, which is supposed to get new aerial tankers over the next decade to replace the KC-135s. That will require new construction and training. There is also a strong medical services infrastructure here. The James A. Haley Veterans' Hospital, with its Polytrauma Center, and the Bay Pines VA Medical Center in Pinellas County, bring veterans and their families to the region, many of whom wind up staying.

Academia, such as the University of South Florida, Saint Leo University and St. Petersburg College, has close ties to the military, cater to veterans and train workforce critical to defense contractors.

And then there is the climate, which attracts veterans who have the skills, experience and, just as importantly, security clearances required by contractors.

The mission, said task force member Robert McDonaugh, Tampa's acting economic development administrator, is to leverage all these advantages and increase business for companies already here and attract new companies to the area.

Meeting the needs of Socom and Centcom will be key, Bayless said.

Bayless said the task force will likely recommend making the Tampa area a Silicon Valley-like incubator for such things as equipment for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions, unmanned vehicles and cyber security.

"These are growth industries," Bayless said.

So far, the task force has no specific benchmarks in terms of jobs or economic growth. That, Bayless said, is the next step.

"We hope to nail down some of those metrics after our meeting on Sept. 28," he said.

The task force is on the right track, said Stan Soloway, president of the Professional Services Council, the trade association for government contractors.

This year, the federal government will spend nearly $400 billion on military contracts, Soloway said. The Bay area is well positioned to garner a greater piece of that, he said, and it is important for the community to be proactive.

With the implementation of thousands of missions – including the killing of Osama bin Laden - Socom has cemented its role with the military, Soloway said. Centcom controls an area of the world that includes Yemen, Iran and Pakistan – countries that still present significant challenges.

"The work they are doing makes eminent sense," Soloway said of the task force. "We are facing some defense cuts. Clearly there will be an impact, but it won't be cataclysmic. Long-term national security is a high priority for both political parties, and some of the assets in Tampa are among the highest of those priorities."