Managing director of military and federal affairs
Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development
By Amrit Dhillon | Contributing Writer
Originally published November 2007

Photo by Christopher Myers.

 Hayes, 64, has been with the DBED office since it’s inception in 1999. It was created so Maryland could pay more attention to its military bases since they provided such a business foundation for the state, but also because if there were going to be more rounds of BRAC, the state should be formally involved, he said.
 And more rounds there were, with Hayes there every step of the way, surviving three administrations. It’s no surprise given his breath of military experience.
 The Wisconsin native spent more than 30 years in the Marines, serving as the base commander in the Western Pacific and ending his active duty as the director of facilities for the entire Corps.
 “Base issues are somewhat second nature to me,” he said modestly.
 This is key as Hayes, Brown and the rest of Maryland’s BRAC posse continue to reach out to potential new Marylanders in anticipation of the 60,000 new jobs and 28,000 new households that will embark on the state by 2011.
 Hayes took time from all the panels, presentations and meetings to sit down with Corridor Inc. to lend a little more insight into what BRAC really means.

What is DBED’s role with BRAC?
Primarily we’re about the coordination of issues that relate to our military presence in Maryland [which] we now measure in terms of economic impact of at least $18 billion a year. With BRAC that will go up considerably … Even though we don’t have large operational bases … we are more often than not around fifth in the nation in defense spending. So there’s a considerable impact on the Maryland economy.

What does BRAC mean for the state?
What others have said and what I would certainly say, is BRAC becomes a further foundation for Maryland’s transition to a knowledge economy. The kind of work that is being brought to us by BRAC are the kind of jobs that pay well, that should last forever and that can become the foundation for steady growth and stability. And it allows Maryland to play a more prominent role in the security of the nation … The other thing that BRAC means is it has clearly become a catalyst for Maryland as a state looking more holistically at how to grow in a manner that guarantees and enhances rather than diminishes quality of life … While BRAC is but a portion of the overall growth in the state, it has clearly had the positive impact of bringing things into focus so that really in many cases for the first time ever counties are working with each other to prioritize things collectively rather than individually.

What’s the biggest challenge?
The challenges are two-fold. The challenges are infrastructure and workforce. We know that something less than 50 percent, some would say as little as 30 percent, of the designated federal workers are going to move with these jobs … We are going to have to work with the Department of Defense, with defense contractors and others to help them identify qualified candidates for these many positions. The state is looking at how to market itself. As we look at the demands particularly on engineers, despite the high quality of our engineering schools here, Johns Hopkins, Morgan State, College Park, UMBC and so forth, we’re going to have to go beyond that. But we also believe part of this marketing focus has to be internal to Maryland. We are going to have to work with the Department of Defense, with defense contractors and others to help them identify qualified candidates for these many positions. The state is looking at how to market itself …But we also believe part of this marketing focus has to be internal to Maryland. We have fairly good data on the thousands upon thousands of people that go into the District of Columbia and Northern Virginia each day, that have the security clearances, have the background, have all that is necessary to fill many of these jobs and for every one of those people we can keep at home, we diminish the infrastructure investment required.
So if I work for an intelligence agency in Northern Virginia or the District and I could otherwise work at Fort Meade and I have three kids in school, if I stay, that’s one less person that we have to provide school seats for. There’s a ripple effect obviously but it has a positive effect in diminishing the amount of infrastructure investment we have to make while allowing for our own citizens to have high paying jobs closer to home.

Do you find the residents of Howard and Montgomery County are key in that regard?
Absolutely. I see it everyday because I live in Northern Virginia. I drive to Baltimore every day from Fairfax City and the only reason I’m able to do this is the disparity in people going north and south. I’ve seen it every day for eight years. So the extent to which we can keep people home, everybody benefits.

Had you been involved with BRAC before?
Not directly.

How’s it different coming from the military?
It’s a little different. Reaching consensus is maybe a little more suggestive than it is direct in the military. But the principles are basically the same. Leadership is the same. Even in the military we interact on a regular basis with elected officials. I now testify in Annapolis, I used to testify in Washington. It is what it is. The principles are all the same.

Are there certain counties that will benefit more than others?
We say that for most of the work we do for BRAC there are seven counties [Cecil County, Baltimore County, Harford, Anne Arundel, Howard, Prince George’s, Montgomery] and the city of Baltimore most directly involved.

Do you think anyone will unfairly bear the burden?
Northeastern Maryland is clearly in a different category than Central Maryland because as a percentage of their overall growth, BRAC is a bigger deal in Harford and Cecil County than it is in Howard or Anne Arundel County. But the growth is comparable in both places.

What’s the reaction in Fort Monmouth?
The reaction amongst the employees has been shifting from one of denial to maybe more realistic understanding that this is going to happen. And with that comes perhaps a little greater inclination to move as part of this … They generally think … that based upon today’s workforce as it’s constituted, maybe only about 30 percent would move. But they are very aggressively hiring between now and then and they think the workforce as it will be constituted in 2011 that their expectation and goal is that about 50 percent of them will actually move … I met again with DISA, the major organization going to Fort Meade and I shared with them the Fort Monmouth conversation and they are hoping to have a comparable experience because they are also aggressively hiring.