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Defense Industry Boosts Prospects for State's Economic Growth (MetroWest Daily News)
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When Waltham-based Raytheon Co. designed the radar technology that gave the British and Allied forces the "most important military advantage" over the Germans and other Axis powers in World War II, a link between the defense and technology industries in Massachusetts was established.
Raytheon was founded in 1922 in Cambridge by former roommates at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The company, which started with a failed attempt to market a refrigeration device, became popular with its technology that gave Americans the capability to plug in their radios rather than rely on batteries.
But it was the company’s MIT connection that gave it access to Britain’s leading military scientists. It was the link that led to the development of practical radar systems and the company’s step into the defense industry. Since then, Raytheon has taken off, producing both key consumer products, such as the microwave, and key military technologies, such as missile guidance systems.
The rest of Massachusetts’ defense industry has also grown with close ties to the research labs at the state’s universities, according to several industry experts. These same labs have also contributed to the growth of Hanscom Air Force Base in Bedford and the U.S. Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, aka Natick Labs, which in turn have helped the industry grow further, the experts said.
A major step toward the state’s defense technology industry’s current path, highlighted last week by Ranch Kimball, the state’s secretary of economic development, came after the Pentagon threatened to close Hanscom and Natick Labs along other bases around the country.
At least 33,000 jobs are tied to Natick and Hanscom, but up to 85,000 jobs contribute to the defense industry here, Kimball said at a conference on the Army’s Future Combat System last Monday. Several of the state’s leaders, including Sen. Ted Kennedy and Gov. Mitt Romney, realized that if the bases closed, the defense technology industry here would be at risk of shrinking.
Out of that fear came the Massachusetts Defense Technology Initiative (MassDTI), which is supported by the Waltham-based Massachusetts High Technology Council. The initiative successfully convinced the Pentagon to keep Natick and Hanscom open last year, by explaining how Massachusetts "has the critical mass, breadth and depth of intellectual capability to best serve the next generation of military technology," according to Alan Macdonald, executive director of MassDTI.
"How we compete nationally and internationally as a (state) economy is being able to serve as a hub for the development of next-generation, innovative technologies," Macdonald said. "We would acknowledge there are other good places to do this in the country, but Massachusetts is the best."
Macdonald said once MassDTI helped save Hanscom and Natick, the organization’s leaders realized that the state did not have a group supporting the companies, large and small, which operate within the defense industry here.
So now, the group will build off its win with the Pentagon "to continue to coordinate internally and create a community of defense technology companies," Macdonald said. One way to do that is to identify the companies that are here, and help some of the smaller companies with next-generation technologies for sale in the private sector find their way into the government market, he said.
While MassDTI looks to expand the defense industry here, the defense industry overall is changing. Not coincidentally, it’s changing in a way that accommodates the expertise that Massachusetts companies and universities can provide, according to U.S. Rep. Martin Meehan, D-Lowell, a House Armed Services Comm
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