By Christine Stutz — With all of the hoopla about commercial development in support of the BRAC initiative, it’s worth noting that one organization, MITRE Corporation, is a major tenant at two of the newest BRAC-related office parks in the Baltimore-Washington corridor.

MITRE Corp. is a not-for-profit organization that operates federally funded research and development centers, or FFRDCs, throughout the nation. MITRE FFRDCs provide systems engineering, research and development and information technology support to the U.S. Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Internal Revenue Service.

Some three-dozen FFRDCs, including those operated by major universities and organizations such as the RAND Corp., provide similar long-term strategic support to government agencies. Working in the public interest, FFRDCs are independent entities supported and funded by the U.S. government to meet long-term technical needs that cannot be met by any other single organization.

MITRE’s recent move to Fort Meade — and in 2007, to Aberdeen — are a direct result of the DoD’s 2005 Base Realignment and Closure directive. At Fort Meade, MITRE has signed a 10-year lease at the National Business Park for its work in support of the Defense Information Systems Agency, or DISA, which is the communications provider for the DoD.

MITRE ultimately will occupy 70,000 square feet at 300 NBP, the fourth building to be built in Phase II of the National Business Park, which is being developed by Columbia-based Corporate Office Properties Trust. MITRE took occupancy of a portion of the space in August 2009 and is waiting for construction to conclude. When completed, the National Business Park will consist of 19 office buildings totaling 2.4 million square feet, according to COPT.

Dave Nolton, director of defense information systems for MITRE and the leader of MITRE’s Fort Meade team, said MITRE hopes to eventually employ 160 at the site. While there have been some infrastructure challenges in and around the aging Fort Meade, mostly having to do with adequacy of roads on the campus, Nolton said his top priority would be to have a shuttle operating between the military base and the office park.

A more immediate concern, though, is with staffing. “The biggest challenge with this location,” he said, “is going to be hiring the human capital that we need. [For] the kind of people that we’re trying to hire, there are probably 1,200 open positions right now with various companies. We’re finding qualified people, but a lot of them are actually relocating to Maryland.”

To address the shortage of qualified workers, MITRE is in discussions with the governor’s office and officials at the University System of Maryland, company officials said, about developing educational programs to help train more Marylanders for defense industry jobs.

MITRE’s occupancy of 54,000 square feet at COPT’s first building at North Gate Business Park in Aberdeen comes as a result of the relocation of several Army operations from Fort Monmouth, N.J., to Aberdeen Proving Ground. A number of military programs are consolidating at the 73,000-acre compound, including DoD’s Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense, and the Army Test and Evaluation Command, or ATEC, said Bernard (Danny) DeMarinis, director of strategic initiatives for the MITRE Army Programs Directorate and the team leader at Aberdeen.

The Army is also building a 2.4 million-square-foot Command, Control, Computer, Communications, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) operation at Aberdeen that is slated to open this year, and which MITRE will support. By the summer of 2011, more than 3 million square feet of research and development and administrative space will have been built at or near APG, according to the APG News.

DeMarinis said he opened the MITRE office in Aberdeen in July 2007 with a handful of employees from the company’s Fort Monmouth, N.J., office, which has been open for 31 years. “Today we have close to 40 people who have either transitioned or been hired,” he said.

In June 2010, DeMarinis said, he expects to move his team — which ultimately will reach 150 people — into their final location at North Gate, just outside of APG on Route 22. The new space at North Gate will comprise a laboratory, conference center, some secure facilities and offices for the staff, he said.

“It’s exciting,” said DeMarinis. “This is a great time to be associated with Fort Meade and Aberdeen Proving Ground.”

— February 2010 print edition