THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 14, 1996 TAG: 9606140550
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JAMES SCHULTZ, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HAMPTON LENGTH: 62 lines
A $52 million contract awarded this week by NASA Langley Research Center to Lockheed Martin Engineering & Sciences Co. comes with a catch, a big one that could ultimately result in the demise of the company's Hampton office.
The agreement stipulates that Lockheed Martin must cut 20 percent of its staff each year, until both the funds for the contract and the personnel working on it are zeroed out by mid-summer 2001.
``Our challenge will be to bring in additional work. Or we'll have to fold in five years,'' said Lockheed Martin program manager Pat Haney. ``If we're going to stay here we certainly won't be able to rely on NASA for work.''
Close to 300 Lockheed Martin scientists, engineers and technicians will provide an array of research services to seven divisions within Langley's Research and Technology Group. The contractors will workwith their NASA counterparts in such disciplines as aerothermodynamics, acoustics, fluid dynamics and guidance and control systems.
Most of his workers, Haney said, live on the Peninsula, but a number reside in Chesapeake, Norfolk and Virginia Beach.
Government belt tightening appears certain to continue to pinch area contractors, like Lockheed Martin. The Senate and the House of Representatives have voted to balance the federal budget by 2002, which will severely restrict new money and new projects.
Last Friday, pink slips were handed out at a sister facility, Lockheed Martin Training and Technical Services in Chesapeake. There, 86 of 107 workers received notice that their jobs will be eliminated in early August because of the pending expiration of a $70 million, five-year contract.
``It's getting a lot tougher,'' Haney said. ``There's a lot less (government) business out there.''
While budget reductions at Langley won't be as severe as those at other NASA centers, the Hampton aerospace complex will also be cutting programs and workers. Two of the center's more than 40 wind tunnels have been mothballed.
Over the next five years, Langley's full-time contractor work force will be pared from around 2,000 to just over 900. By the year 2000, the civil service work force will be cut by 200 to 2,300.
Part of the scaling-back will be research and development services provided by outside companies, said Langley director Paul F. Holloway. Contractors will, however, continue to be employed in security, mail pickup and delivery, wind tunnel maintenance and gardening.
``We will absorb the critical things,'' Holloway said. ``Obviously, we'll be doing less research with fewer people. And we'll have less money. I don't see any chance of getting more people or more money.''
Lockheed Martin's Hampton office will be looking elsewhere in its company for work to keep its specialists employed, according to Haney. For some, who have worked under contracts managed by Lockheed Martin's predecessors, a five-year pact with a certain end date will be traumatic, he said.
``Most of the people here have worked on this contract in one form or another all their professional lives,'' Haney said. ``They are unusually dedicated to their work and to NASA. They love the work and the area. They will try to the last minute to hang on here.''
Considering the frayed state of Uncle Sam's pockets, hanging on will be difficult. Haney offered no predictions that his office would survive beyond the NASA contract's end.
``I'm sitting in a trench, in a foxhole,'' he said. ``You can't see too far out. Everybody has their own rice bowl - and their own problems.''
KEYWORDS: NASA LANGLEY RESEARCH CENTER CONTRACT by CNB