Red River Army Depot generates economic impact for area
Business retention isn’t always easy to understand. Why would we spend a lot of time, effort and money to help an established employer in our community?
It’s easy to throw around big numbers related to the economic impact of Red River Army Depot and other defense-related activities. While it may be a small part of the total for Texas, our defense industry generates an economic impact of almost $2 billion annually. The local defense industry is responsible for about 15,000 direct and indirect jobs. Keeping those jobs is exactly what economic developers mean when we say “business retention.”
The impact of RRAD and the rest of the defenserelated industries in our community would be more noticeable if our defense workforce wore uniforms, but since the Army started downsizing after World War II, we don’t have a large number of soldiers assigned to our base locally. Even when we do have uniformed soldiers in the area, they are usually here for only a few years before moving to the next assignment.
Instead, our area has a defense workforce that is comprised of men and women who go to work in regular clothes. They don’t salute or stand at attention when an officer walks in the room, and they don’t have the luxuries provided on a normal Army base, such as housing or shopping at a commissary.
Rather, they live in surrounding areas and work to support the soldiers who are protecting our freedoms abroad and at home. They serve as volunteers and are vital members of our community. Our defense workforce can be found on local school boards, on city councils, coaching youth sports teams and in leadership positions in local churches. They are your neighbor, your choir leader and your PTA chairperson, and the jobs provided by RRAD and related contractors are absolutely vital to the economy of our region.
Much progress has been made since the last round of Base Realignment and Closures in 2005 that has allowed us as a community to prepare for any future threats to the vitality of RRAD. Thanks to several cities, members of the local business community and organizations, we have the support needed to conduct a business retention effort for our defense industry. These financial commitments allow us to work with elected officials at the state and national level to secure needed support to keep RRAD alive and well. It also gives us resources necessary to help tell the Red River Army Depot story to the defense contractors and others who can be champions for our local cause.
Our business retention efforts can’t prevent a new round of BRAC, but they can help our local defense industry be in the best possible position to mount a BRAC defense and keep local jobs.
We will continue our aggressive efforts to keep our defense industry strong in light of an ever-looming threat of a BRAC. That effort means a continued, aggressive educational process for lawmakers and Pentagon officials. It means keeping local parties informed on budgetary matters and staying topof-mind for our partners and friends in the state and national legislatures. It means maintaining support throughout our economic region. Together, we can keep RRAD and our defense industry a viable part of our economy.