BRAC brass visits Ft. Monmouth

Officials with the Defense Department’s Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) visited Fort Monmouth, N.J., today to discuss the decision to close the Army installation that houses many of the service's warfighting and some of its business information technology offices.

Anthony Principi, BRAC commission chairman, and Lloyd Newton, BRAC commissioner, toured Fort Monmouth this morning. A press conference at the base has been scheduled for this afternoon.

BRAC recommended May 13 to close Fort Monmouth. It proposed moving the Communications-Electronics Life Cycle Management Command, which oversees development and acquisition of the Army’s warfighting IT and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems, to Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.

BRAC also recommended moving some offices of the Program Executive Office for Enterprise Information Systems, which manages the service’s procurement and implementation of business IT systems, to Fort Belvoir, Va., that houses the organization’s headquarters. The Army Small Computer Program Office, for example, resides at Fort Monmouth.

BRAC officials visited Gunter Annex, Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., May 25, said a BRAC official who attended the Montgomery IT Conference May 24. Phil Berube, Air Force spokesman, confirmed the meeting.

BRAC recommended moving 1,250 jobs in the Air Force’s Operations and Sustainment Systems Group and the Engineering and Integration Systems Squadron, formerly called the Headquarters Standard Systems Group, from Montgomery, Ala., to the Electronic Systems Center near Boston. The center houses the Operations Support Systems Wing, which oversees procurement of the service’s business or combat support IT systems and also manages the two organizations.

BRAC also proposed moving two DOD technology organizations. The Defense Information Systems Agency will move from Arlington, Va., to Fort Meade, Md., and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will relocate from Arlington to the Bethesda Naval Medical Center in Maryland.