Posts Tagged ‘jobs to be cut’

Military headquarters in Va. losing 2,300 jobs

Wednesday, February 9th, 2011

SUFFOLK, Va. — The general of a military headquarters known as the U.S. Joint Forces Command said Wednesday that 2,300 workers in Virginia will lose their jobs as part of the Pentagon’s plan to trim bureaucracy and cut costs.

The command employs nearly 6,000 military and civilian personnel, with the bulk of those working at its headquarters in southeast Virginia. About three dozen positions at Creech Air Force Base in Indian Springs, Nev., about 45 miles northwest of Las Vegas, will be cut. The base is home to a squadron operating unmanned aircraft over Iraq and Afghanistan.

Another 25 to 30 percent of the command’s work force in Tampa, Fla. will also be eliminated.

The command’s mission is to train troops from all services to work together for specific missions.

The Pentagon ordered it be eliminated as part of far reaching budget cuts. The command has a budget of just under $1 billion, and its closure is expected to save about $430 million a year as many of its elements are reassigned. The command’s elimination is expected to be completed by the end of August, although some personnel reassignments won’t be completed until 2012.

“The changes are significant,” Gen. Ray Odierno said. “Going forward,we are not simply trimming down each staff element. We are making a major departure from past organization design,procedure and mindset to more effectively execute the core functions and sustain the jointness we’ve worked so hard to achieve in the past.”

Contractors will be among those hardest hit, with the number nationwide dropping to 500 from 2,500.

Officials in Virginia lobbied to retain some of the command’s job functions, and Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell applauded the reorganization plan.

Virginia will retain about 1,900 jobs between operations in Norfolk and Suffolk. Roughly 500 of the command’s jobs will remain between Ft. Belvoir and the Dahlgren Naval Surface Warfare Center in northern Virginia.

“While Joint Forces Command will still close, we were successful in retaining 50 percent of the command’s positions in the region,” McDonnell said in a statement.

The elimination of the command will free up plenty of office space. The command occupies 21 buildings in Norfolk and Suffolk. Once the command closure is complete, JFCOM will be down to four buildings. It wasn’t immediately clear who would occupy the soon-to-be empty buildings, but McDonnell said officials would work to make sure they were filled.

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JFCOM closure could take 15 months

Wednesday, January 12th, 2011

A plan to disestablish U.S. Joint Forces Command should be complete in the next month to month and a half, but the entity will retain a presence in Suffolk.

About 1,900 local jobs — 50 percent of JFCOM’s total Hampton Roads workforce — will be eliminated.

General Ray Odierno, the commander of JFCOM, acknowledged he does not yet know many details of how the closure will happen. He has been tasked with developing a plan for the closure and submitting it to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

“We’re working very closely here with the secretary in developing the implementation plan,” Odierno said Monday, speaking to media representatives in his Norfolk office.

On Thursday, President Barack Obama approved the formal disestablishment of JFCOM.

The command will shed about 50 percent of its 3,900-strong manpower in the Hampton Roads area, as well as about 30 percent of its functions. The reductions are expected to save roughly $400 million a year, Odierno said.

Gates recommended shuttering the command in August among a slate of cost-cutting measures. The command teaches America’s forces how to fight jointly with each other and with military from other nations.

Military personnel whose positions at JFCOM are eliminated will be offered other responsibilities or have the chance to apply for other positions, Odierno said. Department of Defense civilian employees and contractor employees will be on more shaky ground.

“We have mechanisms in place that will help them obtain other employment,” Odierno said of the DOD civilians.

Odierno said he is carrying “a huge burden” for the people who could lose their jobs.

“I know the unknown has been bothering people,” he said. “I’ve been very impressed with how people have continued to do their jobs.”

Odierno had no details regarding whose employment will end, or when. He said the workforce and the public would be informed as soon as details are finalized.

Odierno said the functions that are being eliminated were add-on functions given to the command after it originated in 2000. Those functions were being duplicated elsewhere in the defense department, he said.

The leftovers will no longer be known as a command, Odierno said. However, they will continue core functions of JFCOM, including joint training, concept and doctrine development and providing forces to missions around the world.

Odierno estimated that the closure plan would take about a year to a 15 months to implement fully.

“We’re still going to have a very strong presence in Suffolk, but it will be reduced,” Odierno said.

He also said JFCOM hopes to continue its relationships with community partners such as Old Dominion University.

Odierno added that the remaining functions of the command would need modeling and simulation support, which is good news for some local contractors.

He could not yet give any details about the status of the Suffolk facilities. The buildings at a compound in North Suffolk off College Drive currently are leased.

Odierno has shut down military entities in the past. When he was a lieutenant colonel in the 1990s, he was tasked with shutting down an infantry division.

He said the defense department would need to be judicious as it scales back its workforce as a result of bringing troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

“After Desert Storm, I think we probably went a little too far [with cuts],” he said. “It’s about recognizing what’s necessary to sustain as we move forward.”

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JFCOM closure: Roughly 1,900 local jobs to be cut

Tuesday, January 11th, 2011

NORFOLK —
— Roughly 1,900 jobs will be eliminated in Hampton Roads as the Pentagon moves to downsize and reconfigure Joint Forces Command, its commander said Monday.

The good news: About that same number of positions will survive the cost-cutting, Army Gen. Ray Odierno said

The controversial cuts will save taxpayers about $400 million a year at a time when Congress is trying to rein in spending.

Odierno said he expects a final plan to be ready in 30 to 45 days. Once approved, it will take between 12 and 15 months to implement.

The general held the news briefing to update the public – an anxious public, in the case of Hampton Roads — now that President Obama has formally approved the move to disestablish the command.

Nearly 3,900 people work for JFCOM in Hampton Roads, and they are spread across active-duty military, civilian defense jobs and private contractors.

“We’re working toward 50 percent of that staying here,” Odierno told reporters in a briefing.

He didn’t have details on how specific jobs would fare. However, it appears that the ax will spare positions connected to modeling and simulation,a growing regional industry.

“There is a piece of modeling and simulation that has to continue,that will continue to improve our ability to conduct state of the art joint training,” he said. “That piece will remain.”

Much of that work takes place in Suffolk, and Odierno said he expects the military to still have “a very significant presence” in that city.

Jobs that won’t survive are either being done elsewhere in the military or don’t relate to JFCOM’s core mission, Odierno said.

The major roles that will survive include joint training, developing concepts and doctrine, and providing forces to missions around the world.

Odierno said he was confident whatever is left standing behind will enable the military to sustain its mission of operating and fighting together in a joint manner. The JFCOM acronym will fade from the region’s vocabulary, and there won’t be a new name, Odierno said, because it will not be a separate command.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced last summer he wanted to close JFCOM, which teaches different branches of the military to operate and fight together more effectively. Virginia politicians, concerned about losing thousands of jobs, immediately protested.

Relations between the Pentagon and Virginia leaders were strained throughout the summer and fall. Then in late November, Gates sat down with Virginia’s top elected officials and the atmosphere appeared to improve.

Odierno took command of JFCOM in late October and began meeting with state officials. As the former leader of U.S. forces in Iraq, he oversaw the drawdown of forces there. He pledged to keep the process open.

“Engagement is important,” he said.

The general said he has been impressed by JFCOM’s workforce, but is concerned about their morale as they face the future.

“It is fear of the unknown,” he said. They don’t understand. And I also want to let them know we have mechanisms in place to help them try to gain other employment, especially if you’re DoD civilian. In the military, it’s much easier. We’ll send them somewhere else.”

The issue of contract employees is “much broader,” the general said. A job placement expert told the Daily Press last week that Hampton Roads has a diverse military/defense job base that should make finding a new job easier than in other parts the country.

Hampton Roads is also home to NATO’s Allied Command Transformation, which over the years has established a strong relationship with JFCOM. That helped determine what roles should remain in the region, the general said.

NATO’s ability to link with U.S. concept development process and its training programs has become important, especially with NATO forces fighting side by side with Americans in Afghanistan.

“Leaving the remnants behind where we can maintain that strong relationship is very important piece of this,” he said.

Looking to the long-term future, the general could not predict if Hampton Roads would see significant cuts in defense spending, but the U.S. as a whole should brace for them.

“There’s a lot more coming — of this type of thing,” he said. “The secretary is trying to get ahead, for us to identify where we think we can build some efficiencies before somebody tells us.”

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