OUR ARMY LABS

The state cashes in on military technology

By CARA BAYLES

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The Statehouse's Great Hall became a high-stakes science fair last Thursday, with booths sporting flame-resistant fabrics and night vision goggles. Most of the technology was developed by the US Army's Natick Soldier Systems Center (NSSC), a military research complex that develops food, clothing, shelters and airdrop systems that live up to NSSC's motto, "Protecting those who serve."

The Natick center is the only of its kind in New England, with a 78-acre campus that is essentially a self-contained city, home to a barbershop and a credit union, as well as a thermal testing facility and a 3-D anthropometrics lab.

Brigadier Gen. R. Mark Brown, commander of the NSSC, told the tech-curious crowd that the Army is in "growth mode." "We're somewhat stretched. In fiscal year '09, the Army is working on 99 technology objectives, totaling about $2 billion per year," he said. "We're the only organization that touches every soldier, every single day, all around the world." He added that NSSC equipment is also used by NASA and for disaster relief efforts.

The popular attractions on Beacon Hill included a video game that trains soldiers to remotely aim a gun. Daniel Kolenich, who helped develop the program, said that instead of gunners guiding their weapons manually while sitting atop a humvee, they can man the gun less vulnerably, from inside the armored vehicle. "In the two weeks it takes to install it, they train with these. Over 200 systems have been installed, and we have 30 training systems," said Kolenich, a civilian who's worked for the Army since he graduated from Alabama's Auburn University three years ago. "Have you heard of the videogame America's Army? The Army developed that, so we could use all those codes, because it's [our] property."

Natick is also the development leader of Meal, Ready-to-Eat (MRE) technology. Steve Moody retired after 24 years of service (including a deployment to the Persian Gulf in 2002 as food safety officer for Central Command), and became team leader for individual combat rations at NSSC. He displayed an MRE set designed to serve 50 marines a hot meal. "As soon as we can, we try to get them to eat in groups. We've found it provides an intangible morale boost," he says. He's also designed "kitchen in a carton," meal trays warmed by a magnesium heating pack, which serve 18 people in 30 minutes. "We shipped them to Iraq and Afghanistan. We send thousands each month," Moody says. "They were designed based on feedback from people who were deployed."

Sen. Karen Spilka, D-Natick, referred to NSSC as "an unknown gem in my district."

"They not only provide unparallel service to our troops, they also partner with the private sector and many schools in our Commonwealth as well," she said. "They should be considered one of the Commonwealth's greatest assets."

Jeffrey DiTullio, technology transfer manager for NSSC, said the center's location benefits both the military and Massachusetts. "We're located in a high-tech hub with businesses with similar interests. We have partnerships with several universities," he said, citing Framingham State's food technology research and UMass Dartmouth's fiber tech studies.

Of the $1 billion in NSSC contracts nationwide, Massachusetts receives $80 million in local contracts. All told, NSSC estimates it pumps more than $135 million into the state's economy with salaries, utilities and local contracts.

But the $1 billion for the NSSC's budget is just a fraction of federal dollars spent on defense. The $2.8 trillion US federal budget for the 2008 fiscal year spent $481.4 billion on the Department of Defense (DoD) and an additional $145.2 billion on the War on Terror. With 16.6 percent of the budget, the DoD had the second largest piece of the federal pie (after Social Security), and saw a 12-percent increase since the previous fiscal year. The War on Terror saw a 45.8-percent increase.

But, DiTullio insists the war has not affected the NSSC's budget. "It's a two-edged sword," he says. "There's a lot of interest in specific technologies—body armor, humvee technology—but so much money is necessary to fund the war. A country at war is, by definition, very concerned with how much it's spending."