Bowie may reap BRAC benefits

‘‘With your geography, you have a tremendous opportunity to reach out to all the moving parts here,” retired Brig Gen. Michael Hayes told a crowd of local merchants and entrepreneurs.

Hayes, who leads the military planning division of the state’s Department of Business and Economic Development, was a keynote speaker at a special conference in Bowie, where local business officials tried to learn more about the changes coming from the national Base Realignment and Closure plan, known as BRAC.

State officials have just begun to meet with communities to discuss the impact of the Department of Defense plan, which has mandated consolidating several military intelligence and other specialized agencies at Maryland’s major bases by 2011. The plan is to transfer or create more than 26,000 jobs at military bases in the state in the next four years, with 14,000 at Fort Meade.

But the military growth is just the beginning. The soldiers are likely to bring spouses and children, and another influx of private contractors. Estimates conservatively state that the BRAC influx could create more than 60,000 jobs in central Maryland before it is through.

‘‘We’re talking about the biggest economic change to Maryland since World War II,” said Russell Teter, an official with the Maryland Small Business Development Center, one of the event sponsors.

‘‘Today is about [finding out] what’s in it for me,” said John Henry King, Bowie city’s economic development director.

The city joined with the Bowie chamber of Commerce as co-sponsors of the seminar.

Bowie is also looking to cash in, King said.

Perhaps the best businesses able to cash in on BRAC will be information technology companies that can design databases, analyze and organize the large flow of raw data intercepted daily at the National Security Agency in Fort Meade.

‘‘If you have sons or daughters in high school, and they’re wondering what to do ... the key to the future is information technology,” Hayes said.

Government work still requires getting security clearance, a process that can take up to a year.

But even if they won’t be dealing directly with the complexities of the military-industrial complex, businesses still stand to gain from BRAC. After all, the 25,000 new households will still need to buy homes, go out to dinner and get local bank accounts.

That’s what brought out Brian Canuel, branch manager for the Columbia Bank office at Bowie Town center, who brought his regional manager to the session Tuesday.

‘‘This is the ground floor for us,” he said before the seminar. ‘‘We’re going to be trying to capitalize on the growth and help these folks out at the same time.”

E-mail Daniel Valentine at dvalentine@gazette.net.

Estimated impactof Brac

More than 60,000 new jobs in central Maryland

More than 25,000 new households to the region

Source: Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development