Air Force labs to reorganize
Brian Barr ASC Public Affairs
The Air Force recently announced that it will consolidate
command of its laboratories and research facilities into a single
"super lab" headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force
Base, Ohio.
This announcement will streamline command and management
of Wright Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base,
Ohio; Armstrong Laboratory at Brooks AFB, Texas; Phillips
Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M.; Rome
Laboratory, Rome, N.Y.; and the Air Force Office of Scientific
Research at Bolling Air Force Base, Washington, D.C.
The four laboratories and the Office of Scientific Research will
report to the newly formed Air Force Research Laboratory, to
be headquartered at Air Force Materiel Command.
"This represents a great opportunity for us to maximize the use
of our people as we downsize and concentrate our technology
on the future needs of the Air Force," Maj. Gen. Richard Paul,
director of Science and Technology at AFMC headquarters,
said.
At present, the Air Force laboratories and research facilities
affected by the reorganization employ approximately 7,100
workers. That number is scheduled to fall to 5,500 positions by
2001, a 35 percent reduction from 1990 manning levels,
command officials note.
General Paul said the new Air Force Research Laboratory
structure allows the service to "cut out some intermediate
management layers" and "shorten the chain of command as we
wrestle with budget allocation decisions."
Central management of the laboratories could mean fewer
cutbacks in technical positions as the drawdown continues,
General Paul noted.
"There will be downsizing at all of the bases over the next three
or four years," he added. "That would happen whether or not
we did this realignment. But it's partly because we're going to a
more streamlined organization and trying to preserve as much
of the technical portion of our organizations as possible.
"As organizations get smaller, they've got to find whatever
streamlining measures they can," General Paul said. "We hope
that we're doing this soon enough; that we're being proactive in
getting ready for the future."
All of the laboratories and the service's Office of Scientific
Research already report to AFMC headquarters, through
various chains of command. Armstrong Laboratory, for
instance, which has some facilities at Wright-Patterson, is part
of AFMC's Human Systems Center, while Phillips Laboratory
reports to the Space and Missile Systems Center; and Wright
Laboratory, the largest of the Air Force laboratories, is part of
Aeronautical Systems Center.
General Paul said the laboratory realignment should have little
impact on research now underway at other bases.
"Most of the technology work will continue where it's located,"
he said. "The investment decisions will be made here.
"This will be more central management of how we spend our
resources, hopefully more effectively with one staff instead of
four or five staffs," General Paul added. "It will allow us to
manage the Air Force science and technology enterprise in a
much more cohesive manner, with a single organizational
structure."
General Paul said the decision to locate the new laboratory
command at Wright-Patterson doesn't represent a significant
influx into the base workforce since most of the initial
organization will be drawn from the 80-person staff of the
existing AFMC Science and Technology directorate.
"That will form the core of the Air Force Research Laboratory
planning staff," he explained. "We intend to augment that with
staff from the field... some of those positions may move here
and some may stay distributed in the field but report to a single
staff manager at Wright-Patterson."
General Paul has been named as the commander of the new
laboratory.
Just how much money the Air Force will save by consolidating
command of the laboratories "is part of what we're in the
process of defining," General Paul said.
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