Beyond BRAC: Are Local Job Candidates Qualified to Fill New APG Jobs?

Less than a month after the of the federal government program to move thousands of government jobs to , local planning officials are concerned that local residents may not be qualified to take advantage of some employment opportunities.

“We cannot fill jobs that are open right now,” at APG from the pool of local residents, said Bill Richardson, Director of Harford County’s Office of Economic Development.

“Higher education development has been one of the shortcomings of Harford County and Aberdeen,” in preparing for the arrival of job opportunities from the federal Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process, he said.

“I heartily concur with Richardson,” said Robert DiMichele, a spokesman for the Communications-Electronics Command (CECOM), a U.S. Army unit that moved about 5,000 jobs to APG as part of BRAC.

“The type of jobs we have available here are specialized jobs that require specialized degrees,” DiMichele said. Not all of the training and degree programs needed to qualify for these jobs are readily available to local residents in Aberdeen and Harford County, he said.

“We have thousands of logisticians and information technology people,” DiMichele said, and because the CECOM workforce is aging, the command will need to do more hiring in the coming years.

The Communications-Electronics Command will seek qualified replacements wherever they can be found, DiMichele added. If not enough qualified candidates can be found locally, he said, “we might go to the technology centers in California or to North Carolina’s Research Triangle” to find new workers.

The problem is real and has been recognized by economic planners and educators in the region, said Bruce England, executive director of the Susquehanna Workforce Network, a non-profit group that works closely with the local governments of Harford and Cecil counties.

“APG needs a lot of people with advanced degrees, or at least with advanced certifications, and upgrading degrees locally can be difficult,” England said.

“The community colleges in Harford and Cecil have done a good job in creating four-year degree possibilities, particularly around the procurement and logistics” functions of the different military units at APG, England said. But there is a need for more specialized training and continuing education programs for APG workers, he said.

England and DiMichele agreed that one success story has been the development of the Science & Math Academy (SMA) at .

“(The Science and Math Academy) is a tremendous asset to our community,” England said. Initiated five years ago, SMA is now graduating students into undergraduate colleges where they can pursue their interest in science, technology and mathematics, he said.

In a few short years, these students from Harford County families will be qualified to take high-paying technical jobs at APG and elsewhere in the region, he said.