In a slow economy, any growth on the horizon is sure to be a hit with business. That explains why 240 business owners attended a presentation at Ft. Meade regarding its latest transformation.

At the Dec. 3 event, every presenter from the Fort Commander to the Marketing Representatives highlighted new business opportunities existing thanks to Ft. Meade's growth and the influx of workers due to Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC).

BRAC is a congressionally mandated closure of Department of Defense installations and beefing up of others. In the case of Ft. Meade, several northern Virginia organizations and a total of 5,800 employees will be relocated to Ft. Meade. The largest group moving in is DISA, the Defense Information Systems Agency, with approximately 4,300 employees relocating. DISA is responsible for sustaining and protecting defense communications worldwide.

An army of small businesses

The December BRAC Business Initiative (BBI) meeting was conducted by Kent Menser, executive director of the Howard County BRAC office and co-coordinator of the Ft. Meade Regional Growth Management Committee.

First on the agenda was Installation Commander Col. Daniel  L. Thomas, who gave a BRAC overview. Thomas said that the 42,000 people employed on post at Ft. Meade will rise to 48,000 by September 2011, a number that doesn't include those in Cyber Command. Among its tasks, Cyber Command supports and protects Department of Defense missions and networks and may conduct military cyberspace operations.

There are also 10,000 people living on post, in addition to scores of visitors each day who use the golf course, commissary, hospital and other services.

"The businesses coming in now are on the front wave of development," Thomas said.

Though there's been much focus on the largest tenant, the National Security Agency, the new BBI focus is on the post's 80 other tenants. Doing business with them can be complicated because contracting offices may not reside at Ft. Meade, but on the other side of the country, making coordination and simplifying the contracting process an imperative.

Thomas hopes to have more local small businesses capture contracts with post tenants and "even out" the numbers of contractors who are out of state with those that are local. By February 2011, he said, several tenants and contractors should be matched up.

Learning to market

Members of the task force are making a concentrated effort to overcome the reality that marketing is not the army's forte.  

That an army post is not Madison Avenue is a fact about which Menser was candid: "The Army is lousy at marketing. But there's opportunity to give visibility to your business and help those both inside and outside the fence. It's going to take time. The good news is that we're not going anywhere. We'll be here for the next two, three years, and we'll work for you."

Doug Dehner, with the Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation Command (FMWR), and SoundOff Public Affairs Officer Chad Jones talked about advertising opportunities on post. Among the sites for advertising are on the post's golf course and in the Ft. Meade paper SoundOff.

In line with the presentation's emphasis on advertising, Morgan Robbins of the post's marketing department told the audience that the FMWR website gets an average of 24,000 hits a month. Robbins listed other FMWR venues and events that would put local businesses in the spotlight: themed dinners, door wraps, banners, Fourth of July celebration,s Oktoberfest, youth ball teams and a Family Fun Fair in the spring. There are also billboards on post that can flash LED-powered advertising messages 264 times a day. 

"There are a zillion opportunities," said Robbins."We are only limited by your creativity and mine."

Potential partners

Two businesswomen in the audience from Elkridge found the presentations helpful. 

One, a real estate agent, is like many in the slow housing market, hopeful that the influx of employees to Ft. Meade will mean that some will look for housing along the Baltimore/Washington corridor. There will be heavy competition trying to capture the attention of these potential new Maryland residents, and the meeting's speakers stressed ways area businesses could advertise on post.

"It's great to learn what's going on and that there are partnerships and sponsorships available," said longtime Elkridge resident Michelle Miller. Miller is an agent in the Columbia Long & Foster office.

Gail Sigel, owner of Harwood Park-based IT and business consulting firm Ingenious Solutions, agreed. Sigel added: "I anticipate getting some business from BRAC. I definitely think that some of the companies will have a presence on the post." She projected that business will come to these companies directly from Ft. Meade or from partnering with companies receiving contracts related to BRAC.

Sigel also said that the meeting was informative because "it let companies know that all services on base or related to BRAC do not require security clearances and that BRAC and military personnel can contact the resource center on base to find services that they need."

The next Ft. Meade Growth Update meeting will be Jan. 26, 2011. Visit the Howard County BRAC Task Force website for more info.