A City of 23,000

New Mexico Business Journal, Oct, 2001 by Howard Kercheval

Kirtland is Albuquerque's mighty economic engine, but is it a permanent fixture? Col. Jan Eakle, the base commander, talks about her "tenants."

WITH THE NEW ADMINISTRAtion in Washington looking for ways to adapt the military to the post-Cold War era and increase its investment in high-tech weaponry, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has resurrected the proposal to find some of that money by closing no-longer-needed defense-related facilities, including weapons research and production facilities. The instrument of that proposal would be the Efficient Facilities Initiative of 2001 (EFI).

Under its provisions, a commission would recommend closing as many as one-fourth of existing military installations by July 2003. Rumsfeld, who has encountered stiff opposition from military leaders to his line of planning, could block the recommendations.

Sound familiar?

Slip back to 1995, when the Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC) shocked the Albuquerque area by including Kirtland Air Force Base on its list of bases recommended for "realignment." Practically overnight, a group of political and civic leaders formed the Kirtland Partnership Committee (KPC), which mounted an intense -- and ultimately successful -- effort to get Kirtland withdrawn from the list.

And after the EFI was released by the administration in early August, members of the group rushed out to declare their opposition again. Among the first to the television cameras and microphones were New Mexico senators. Pete Domenici and Jeff Bingman.

"I want to study any proposal to include DOE defense facilities in any base closure process, because I see some very serious problems if it is not conducted carefully or correctly," said Domenici, ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee that funds the Department of Energy and the national laboratories. "Past BRAC processes, most notably the 1995 round, showed us that some recommendations were made without looking at all the facts and without seeing the big picture. These are serious decisions that cannot be made while wearing blinders."

The 1995 recommendation to realign Kirtland, he said, was based on "inaccurate and incomplete information," including dubious cost-savings projections which, when pointed out to the BRAC planners, led to the base's removal from the list.

Bingaman, chairman of the Armed Services Committee since Democrats regained control of the Senate, said, "I do not anticipate much Senate support for the defense secretary's proposal, and I personally do not support it. The secretary's proposal doesn't make sense when our global military commitments are growing and the initial costs of closing bases would force our military to cut critical funds needed for today's military tasks."

The state's three Air Force bases -- Kirtland, Cannon at Clovis and Holloman at Alamogordo -- and the Army's White Sands Missile Range "are central to our nation's overall defense strategy..." he said. "In general, New Mexico is a proven winner, with the infrastructure and expertise needed to support military programs. I will work to ensure that our bases remain strong."

Even though no legislation that would launch EFI has been introduced yet, Kirtland Partnership Chairman Tony Strati said members of the group had been expecting something like the EFI proposal and already were planning lobbying efforts in Washington.

While the EFI includes weapons research and production facilities like Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories, the focus in New Mexico falls on the military installations, notably Kirtland, Cannon and Holloman, and probably more on Kirtland because of the 1995 round.

Kirtland is the third largest installation in the Air Force Materiel Command. It occupies 51,558 acres, and more than 23,000 people work there, including more than 4,200 active duty military, about 1,000 members of the National Guard and some 3,200 part-time reservists.

The base's economic impact on Albuquerque in 2000 was more than $2.7 billion.

Col. Jan Eakle, commander of the 377th Air Base Wing, the "parent" organization for Kirtland talked recently about the base and her job running it.

Q. Being base commander at Kirtland has sometimes been referred to as more a "landlord" position than that of a traditional Air Force base commander, because of all the non-military residents -- DOE, Sandia and others. What impact does that difference have in the way you function as base commander?

Kirtland is clearly a more complex installation than most in the Department of Defense. While all air base wings exist to provide essential services to tenant organizations, the 377th Air Base Wing here at Kirtland has a broader customer base than would normally be serviced.

Most bases have few -- if any -- agencies that aren't part of the Air Force. Here we service DOE and Sandia National Laboratories, as well as the U.S. Geological Survey, the FAA (Federal Aviation Agency), U.S. Customs, an Army explosive ordnance disposal unit, and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, among others.