By Shera Dalin
In the expanding advanced manufacturing market relating to defense,
several key business
and political leaders have joined together to help strengthen ties between small and large defense contractors in St. Louis.
Since 2004, a growing number of the
St. Louis region’s defense contractors have been convening for an annual meeting to exchange ideas, contact information and become better educated about the state of the $12 billion industry in Missouri. Contractors large and small say few opportunities exist to interact with other contractors because the industry is so large and there isn’t a central association that serves as a connecting point.
“The event has been useful on a number of fronts,” says Bob Elfanbaum, chief executive of Asynchrony Solutions in St. Louis. “Small businesses in the defense industry in St. Louis, we spend most of our time on the (West) Coast and we lose touch with what’s happening in the industry. It’s really good to stay in touch locally.”
The Defense Contractors Working Group meets on an ongoing basis at the RCGA for a half-day seminar on an industry topic. The effort was founded by Boeing’s regional executive George Roman and U.S. Rep. Todd Akin, R-Town and Country, and ranking member of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Both Boeing and Congressman Akin continue to support the effort. Akin was the group’s first speaker. Previous speakers came from the U.S. Department of Defense, Missouri National Guard, Boeing and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
“I have excellent access to speak to all kinds of people and so I thought, ‘why not pull together a bunch of executives in the defense industry to help direct them to the right people to talk to, like Boeing and, say, a small company that makes a small pin or a key. In St. Louis, we can do that,” Akin says.
“This is really very exciting. We have a unique opportunity here, but a lot of people don’t understand this,” the Congressman notes. “A lot of politicians and city planner types are going ape over bioengineering and those types of research areas, which is appropriate. The fact is that Missouri is the fifth state in the entire nation in terms of how much of the defense budget we get, and guess where most of that is located—St. Louis, of course. It’s crazy if we don’t capitalize on that strength that we have.”
The Department of Defense awarded 90 percent of the federal contracts that Missouri vendors received in 2006, the most recent year for which statistics are available. Those contracts focused on aircraft manufacturing, research and operational systems development, according to the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center.
Engineering services contracts accounted for $3.9 billion, followed by $1.8 billion in aircraft manufacturing, the center reported.
In total, defense contracts paid for $6.29 billion in wages and salaries for nearly 160,000 Missouri workers.
Beyond the spending, the defense industry attracts a highly skilled advanced manufacturing workforce of laborers, engineers and technicians that bolster the area’s economy, Akin says.
“This is an infrastructure that has built up over time and has been underreported and underrated,” he says. “Its significance to our economy is tremendous.”
More than 50 defense contractors call the St. Louis area home, Akin estimated. But many, such as Asynchrony and Clean Earth Technology in Earth City have other nondefense products and services, further broadening the economic base of the region.
Clean Earth, for instance, makes sensor systems that can be affixed to airborne or land vehicles for intelligence gathering, surveillance or reconnaissance, says co-founder and managing member Bob Morgan. The sensor systems can also be used by the life sciences industry.
Morgan says the Defense Working Group meetings at the RCGA have been helpful not only in letting large companies know about products and services offered by smaller firms, but it also helps smaller firms collaborate with one another.
“When opportunities come up, you can see that company A has this capability and company B has this other,” Morgan says. “I’m always amazed at every new business I haven’t heard of before and at what goes on in St. Louis. It’s really quite phenomenal that they are doing good work and under the radar.”
In the case of Clean Earth, which is often a prime contractor on federal projects, the relationships can also lead to valued subcontractors or employees.
For Asynchrony, the real attraction of such interchanges is gaining knowledge of what projects the military might be focusing on next, and being able to talk to the key players involved in bidding for and awarding those contracts.
“The only way to get access to that stuff is networking and understanding who is making decisions. For example, we support Boeing in their future combat systems. Boeing is our single largest customer and those meetings help build the relationship,” says Elfanbaum, whose company focuses on enterprise architecture and specialized systems that can help detect roadside bombs.
Morgan says he is optimistic that the defense industry in St. Louis will continue to strengthen because of a predicted three percent to five percent growth rate over the next decade in defense and homeland security spending.
“Overall, the defense industry in St. Louis could always be better,” he says. “There is a lot of good work going on in St. Louis among the smaller businesses.” |
