In the Press...
Asbury Park Press:'$42M center to be built at Joint Base''Smith a guest speaker for the hangar complex he started pushing in 2008'BY ASBURY PARK PRESS SENIOR REPORTER KIRK MOORE - Work is beginning on a new Army electronics research and aviation center at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst — a $42 million project that will keep one of the last vestiges in New Jersey of the once-massive Fort Monmouth research complex. Six years in the making, the new home of the Communications and Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center will allow the Army to move people and helicopters out of an aging wooden blimp hangar built for the Navy at Lakehurst in World War II. Pieces falling out of the high structure led engineers years ago to put up netting to protect people, aircraft and expensive aircraft from the debris. “The safety, well-being and a suitable workplace for the hardworking men and women devoted to CERDEC required a new venue,” said Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., at a Friday ground breaking for the new facility. “The escalating risk of damage or destruction to aircraft and unique equipment had the potential to undermine the research, testing, re-testing and modification missions carried on daily at the facility,” with potential impact for soldiers who depend on the systems from CERDEC, he said. The project was one of Smith’s causes when he represented the Lakehurst side of the joint base. Congressional redistricting put it with Rep. Jon Runyan, R-N.J., but Smith was a guest speaker for the hangar complex he started pushing in 2008. [sic] *(Congressman Smith in fact does currently represent the Lakehurst side of JB-MDL, and has since 1993.) CERDEC works on systems like battlefield sensors and communications networks, and the Army has had a flight facility at Lakehurst for 60 years. It remained there when the rest of Fort Monmouth’s command was moved to Aberdeen, Md., in the final rounds of post-Cold War base closings and realignments. The planned facility will be somewhat downsized from the original $47 million proposal, but still much larger than CERDEC’s present quarters with a hangar big enough to accommodate four-engine C-130 Hercules aircraft along with helicopters. |