BRAC Workers in Place

The 4,300 workers that transferred from Northern Virginia to the new DISA campus at Fort Meade are now in place. The bad news is that the lions share of those workers are commuters. According to The Real Estate Wonk blog by Jamie Smith Hopkins in The Sun, many have opted to “commute at first rather than move because it's a tough time to sell a home…”

“That's basically what has happened. “The number of Virginians that have moved is relatively small ... in the overall scheme of things," said David Bullock, DISA’s BRAC executive. "We’re probably looking at less than 1,000 that were actually willing to move."

It’s not all bad though. DISA’s arrival at Fort Meade has been good for Maryland job seekers.

“But about half of DISA's workers now live in Maryland, compared with just 20 percent pre-BRAC. That's because the agency has been doing a lot of hiring the last few years, and a lot of those employees are Marylanders.”

For anyone wanting to know more about BRAC’s impact on the loco economy, there are a couple of upcoming events that you may want to pencil in on your calendar. On Wednesday, September 28^th the HoCo BRAC Business Initiative will include presentations by Congressmen Elijah Cummings, Dutch Ruppersberger, and John Sarbanes along with County Executive Ken Ulman. The meeting will be held at the Other Barn in the Oakland Mills Village Center beginning at 8:00 AM. This event is free and open to the public.

The next day, September 29^th, the 2nd Annual BRAC, Cyber and Fort Meade Summitt will be held at the Hyatt Regency in Baltimore. Brigadier J. Michael Hayes (Ret), the Director of the Office of Military and  Federal Affairs for the State of Maryland will be among the featured speakers. The cost of this event is $44.00 in advance.