Thursday, January 22, 2009

Mass. loses out on Air Force cyber-security center

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Hanscom Air Force Base has been eliminated as a potential home for a cyber security center, after the U.S. Air Force narrowed the field of proposed sites for to six bases.

The Air Force announced this morning that Barksdale Air Force Base, La., Lackland Air Force Base, Texas; Langley Air Force Base, Va.; Offutt Air Force Base, Neb.; Peterson Air Force Base, Colo.; and Scott Air Force Base, Ill. are still in the running to become the home for cyber operation.

For more than a year, Massachusetts officials and industry leaders had been trying to attract the cyber center -- and the jobs and contracts it would have created. In June, Gov. Deval Patrick drafted a proposal for siting the command at Hanscom and sent it to William Anderson, assistant secretary for installations, environment and logistics for the Air Force. In the letter, Patrick highlighted Hanscom’s proximity to institutions like MIT and Lincoln Labs, as well as companies like Raytheon Co. and General Dynamics Corp. Patrick also touted Hanscom’s readiness in terms of space, power supply and Internet bandwidth and the region’s low likelihood of natural disasters.

Last fall, the Defense Technology Initiative and Mass Insight Corp. began work on an IT security center intended to help attract the 24th Air Force and link researchers at schools like MIT and the University of Massachusetts Amherst with each other, and with the security needs of local financial and defense industry companies. At the time, DTI director Don Quenneville said local colleges and companies would benefit from such a group if the state failed to land the 24th Air Force.

The Air Force had initially planned to stand up a new command dealing with cyber security, but in October, decided to create a 400-person, “numbered Air Force” under Air Force Space Command for cyberspace operations. The new force will be labeled the 24th Air Force.