NASA, Shared Services Center, backoffice, F&A

Virginia vies for NASA hub contract

10 Dec 2003 | (Case Study)

The State of Virginia is competing with at least five other locations within the United States to be the new hub of business services for NASA, an attractive venture that would bring up to 800 high-paying jobs to the area.

Prospects for a win are far from sure, but local economic leaders and NASA Langley Research Center officials will submit a proposal promoting the Peninsula as home to the new NASA Shared Services Center.

Following suit with the corporate world, NASA wants to consolidate its finance, information technology, procurement and human resource services from separate operations at 10 different field centers into one centralized location. The average annual salary at the NASA Shared Services Center would be $60,000, with about two-thirds of the work force contracted.

"These kinds of jobs would be great for the whole region, and especially for Hampton," said Hampton City Manager George Wallace.

The Peninsula Alliance for Economic Development, a public-private partnership that promotes local business, hasn't yet recommended a location for the Shared Services Center. But Hampton, Newport News and James City County are interested.

The center also could be headquartered on the NASA Langley campus. The alliance will recommend a location by the end of the week; then, NASA Langley has until the end of January to make a final pick on the location and submit it to NASA headquarters.

Local leaders hope landing another NASA operation outside of Langley would add to their tax base.

"This is a huge, huge deal," said Anna McNider, part of team of professionals working on the initiative for the Peninsula Alliance. "This is what supports your Bass Pros and your convention centers."

Among the possible locations are Hampton Roads Center North, near Magruder Boulevard in Hampton, and City Center at Oyster Point in Newport News. NASA plans to open the new center in 2005 and have it fully staffed in 2008 with 500 to 800 employees.

McNider said Langley could lose some business services jobs if NASA chooses another location for its Shared Services Center.

The Peninsula will compete with at least five other NASA field center locations: Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Johnson Space Center in Texas, Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama and Glenn Research Center in Ohio.

The Peninsula has a good chance to win because of its accessibility to three airports, its well-trained work force, including ex-military, and its central location to other NASA centers, said Richard Weigel, president and CEO of the Peninsula Alliance.

"It's an area that has a high quality of life," he said. "The cost of living is competitive, and we're well-wired with fiber optics."

The electronic age makes it possible for sprawling government agencies and corporations to consolidate business practices that once had to be on-site because of the cost of shuffling paperwork, said Howard McCurdy, an American University professor and author of "Inside NASA."

McCurdy said all the centers have a good chance at winning the proposal. But then again, no one could win, he said.

"I'm not sure all the information generated by all the centers is going to make a difference in the outcome," he said. "The selection of this sort of thing is usually pretty arbitrary."

Politics might muddle the decision, he said. NASA had already suggested Orlando as the location for the Shared Services Center when U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., complained that all NASA centers should have a chance to make a proposal.

"A decision administratively made can be unraveled for political reasons," McCurdy said. "Corporations don't have to answer to senators. If it saves them money, they do it the new way. But government agencies don't have profit-and-loss statements, which makes this consolidation about as hard as closing a military base."

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