The United States Military has proven itself as the best in the world and has clearly adapted to asymmetrical warfare. Opting for quality over quantity the Department of Defense has altered the basic make up and organization of the military.

A part of this effort is the Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC) that oversees existing military base closures, realignments and mergers. A number of BRAC efforts have been completed with the BRAC 2005 being the latest effort.

This is a multiyear, substantial effort and creates significant opportunities for software companies capable of database migration with cleared personnel. These jobs often require advanced degree and state of the art skilled individuals and often high level clearances.

In the Intelligence Community two locations are expected to grow substantially as commands from other locations are consolidated with existing Intelligence capabilities: Fort Meade, Maryland and Ft. Belvoir, Virginia.

Ft. Meade, Maryland

Ft. Meade is best known as the home of the National Security Agency but NSA is the largest tenant on what is a large army base. Because of the proximity to the NSA and for other reasons Ft. Meade was chosen to receive functions and employees from BRAC reductions.

The Defense Information Systems Agency accounts for the largest share of the BRAC jobs moved to Ft. Meade with more than 4,200 jobs now in Northern Virginia. Most of these jobs are information technology and communications specialists. Other commands will add to the increase.

Fort Belvoir, Virginia

Fort Belvoir is the home of Army Intelligence but supports a number of other tenant agencies. As a result of the BRAC, Fort Belvoir will add a net 12,000 employees and contractor FTE’s (full time equivalents) to its campus.

A major transition of an IC agency is the transition of a major portion of National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency from the Washington Navy Yard (WNY) to an entirely new facility. NGA is included in the 2005 BRAC and will be moving its Washington, D.C. based facilities to the Engineer Proving Ground of Ft. Belvoir in Northern Virginia. Under the BRAC law, the move must be completed by September 15, 2011.

As a result of the 2005 BRAC Fort Belvoir, already a major employer in the Washington, D.C. metro area is scheduled to expand significantly. The facility relies heavily on contractors.

The Information Technology directorate at Fort Belvoir is sophisticated and effective and manages a large information network. As the BRAC proceeds, a large number of high level Information Technology and Cyber Security jobs will be created.

Skills Required

Both the military and the Intelligence Community manage their business using high performance databases that are networked for maximum performance. The physical movement of these databases requires planning, execution and familiarity with hardware and required network interfaces.

Vendors with required clearances and experience in high performance database migration will add significant value to the process.

Each BRAC move and migration has unique requirements, software and hardware standards and network interfaces so a variety of diverse skills is required. In depth experience in the following areas adds value:

Software Development
Software Testing
Software Engineering
Integrated Hardware & Software Testing
Data Preparation
Engineering Services
Distributed Processing
Analytics/Information Retrieval
Natural Language Processing
Software Analysis
Visualization/Human-Computer Interface Design & Development
Database/Knowledge Base Research & Development
Quality Control Inspection
Documentation
Multimedia Processing
Geo Location
High Speed Access
Emerging Mobile Technologies
Equipment Procurement, Storage, & Field Deployment

The Value of High Level Clearances

Both Fort Meade and Fort Belvoir are heavily involved with the collection, analysis and distribution of intelligence. Because of this vendors with staff that have high level clearances (TS/SCI, SI/TK and full scope polygraph) along with state of the art technical skills should be in demand.

Defense contractors specializing in the Intelligence Community now offer high salaries and excellent benefits related to BRAC redeployment efforts.