The Department of Defense (DoD) has awarded a $3 million grant to the New Jersey Technology Solutions Center (NJTSC) to help keep high-technology jobs in Monmouth County in the wake of Fort Monmouth’s closing.
Reps. Rush Holt (D-12th District) and Frank Pallone (D-6th District), with Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez, worked to secure the funding from the U.S. Army.
This grant, not to exceed $2,995,000, will provide the operating funds for the NJTSC office, located in Shrewsbury, and the administrative personnel that would be writing the contracts and hiring people, Pallone said.
“They’re going to go out and they’re going to try and get Army contracts, DoD contracts, pentagon contracts that are in the same CECOM [Communications-Electronics Command] related subjects as what CECOM would do now or what other private contractors would do now,” Pallone said.
“There are more private people who work through private contracts associated with CECOM in Monmouth County than actual government workers at CECOM,” he added.
Many of these private contracts, Pallone said, would be moving to Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., with the rest of CECOM once Fort Monmouth is closed in September 2011.
“The whole idea is for them to get contracts that would have gone to CECOM or other contractors and have those done here with personnel that are not going to Aberdeen,” he said.
“We’ve been trying to tell the government, ‘Look, a lot of the people that work at Fort Monmouth are not going to Aberdeen’; there’s still a huge number that are not. They have the skills and the expertise, maybe even more so than the people they would hire in Aberdeen.
“We want to continue to get a lot of the contracts that CECOM or these other contractors would have had when it leaves and Fort Monmouth closes, and keep them in Monmouth County and hire people who worked at CECOM or worked for the private contractors to continue to do this work.”
According to a press release from the Department of Army Public Affairs, NJTSC, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, was created in response to a solicitation from the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development in consultation with the U.S. Army in September 2008. NJTSC’s mission is to maintain and grow high skill, high-technology jobs in New Jersey by performing scientific and engineering tasks to serve the needs of end-users, including the U.S. government.
“We welcome any entity capable of competing for contracts and opportunities on the basis of quality of work, timeliness and cost. Although BRAC 2005 [Base Closure and Realignment Commission] requires the Army to close Fort Monmouth, the award of this grant helps the Army continue its access to technical expertise remaining in the area, even as much of the Fort Monmouth work force moves to Maryland,” Katherine Hammack, assistant secretary of the Army for installations and environment, said in the press release.
Officials believe that NJTSC with this funding will help mitigate the job loss caused by Fort Monmouth’s absence.
“The funding we secured, which is now being awarded, is an investment that will put to work the talented men and women — the scientists, engineers and acquisition specialists— who, for decades, have helped provide our troops with the communications and intelligence support they need. The NJTSC will be a jobs center for years to come,” Holt said in a press release from his office.