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250 jobs may come with aerospace medicine school deal

Contract jobs, and potentially 1,000 or more additional jobs, a direct benefit from 2005 BRAC

(From left) Rick Pereles, Greene County Commissioner; U.S. Rep. Steve Austria, R-Beavercreek; Michael Bridges, president of Peerless Technologies; and U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Centerville, at a press conference Monday, Jan. 11, announcing that Peerless Technologies won a contract that will bring 200 to 250 jobs to the Dayton area as part of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure process.

Staff photo by Ty Greenlees (From left) Rick Pereles, Greene County Commissioner; U.S. Rep. Steve Austria, R-Beavercreek; Michael Bridges, president of Peerless Technologies; and U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Centerville, at a press conference Monday, Jan. 11, announcing that Peerless Technologies won a contract that will bring 200 to 250 jobs to the Dayton area as part of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure process.

ENLARGE PHOTO

By John Nolan, Staff Writer Updated 11:57 PM Monday, January 11, 2010

FAIRBORN — Six new contracts awarded to a Fairborn company and five other contractors will generate jobs for doctors, nurses, molecular biologists, laboratory technicians and other specialists over the next five years in support of the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, which is relocating to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

Peerless Technologies Corp. is the only local company among the six contractors that are splitting the $93 million in contracts, which will be spread over five years. The companies will support the Air Force school’s occupational medicine mission of examining the stresses of aircraft and spacecraft travel on the human body. The contracts from the 711th Human Performance Wing at Wright-Patterson, which includes the aerospace school, could provide 200 to 250 professional jobs during the five-year period , with the hiring by the six competing companies likely to occur in small bunches over that time, officials said.

The salaries could vary from six-figure pay for doctors to the $40,000 to $80,000 range for support specialists, depending upon their career specialties and experience, said Kurt Harendza, a vice president of Peerless Technologies.

Peerless Technologies expects that the government’s first hiring order under the contract could come within the next week or two for four information technology support specialists, Harendza said Monday, Jan. 11, after a news conference at Wright State University to announce the contracts.

The School of Aerospace Medicine is to relocate from Brooks City-Base in San Antonio, Texas, to Wright-Patterson by Sept. 15, 2011, along with sensors research and other military programs being moved to comply with the nation’s 2005 base realignment and closure process.

These contracts, and the jobs they bring, are a direct benefit to the region from the 2005 BRAC decision to create aerospace medicine and sensors centers of research excellence at Wright-Patterson, said officials of the Dayton Development Coalition who helped the Dayton area lobby for centralizing the programs at Wright-Patterson.

This contract will create the first professional-services jobs in the private sector that can be directly attributed to the BRAC influx of programs, said Jim Leftwich, the coalition’s president and chief executive officer. They could be the first of 1,000 or more jobs to be created in the Dayton area during 2010 and 2011 as defense contractors move from San Antonio; Mesa, Ariz., and other locations that are sending programs to Wright-Patterson in the BRAC shift, Leftwich said.

“This is chapter two,” said U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Centerville. “This is the next story of BRAC.”

Wright State University entities, including the Boonshoft School of Medicine, Wright State Research Institute and Wright State School of Aerospace Medicine, are to work with Peerless Technologies among its 16 subcontractors that will supply personnel and expertise.

Peerless Technologies and three companies in San Antonio; one in Tulsa, Okla., and a group of companies in Fort Wayne, Ind., collectively known as Team PQC are to service the contracts. The mission is to support the School of Aerospace Medicine in its current operation at Brooks City-Base and during and after its relocation to Wright-Patterson .

All told, Wright-Patterson is to realize a direct gain of about 1,100 military and government civilian jobs from the BRAC realignment. The base is already the largest single-site employer in Ohio with a work force that fluctuates around 25,000 people.

Primary contractors for aerospace medicine support

Peerless Technologies Corp., Fairborn; Decypher Technologies Ltd, San Antonio, Texas; P3S Corp., San Antonio; Prairie Quest Inc., Fort Wayne, Ind.; Solutions Through Innovative Technologies Inc., Tulsa, Okla., and SpecPro Technical Services, San Antonio, Texas. The companies are to compete to provide the Air Force with support personnel under a five-year contract worth up to $93 million.

The contractors are to provide administrative and functional support, medical and biomedical research assistance, clinical and clinical hyperbaric medicine services, environmental bio-terrorism support, technology evaluation and research studies support.

Source: Department of Defense.

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