Letterkenny Army Depot Means Business

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Quad -- State Business Journal

February 2009 Letterkenny Army Depot Means Business

BYLINE: Pfoutz, Yvonne

SECTION: Pg. 15 Vol. 20 No. 4

LENGTH: 1405 words

ABSTRACT

Lockheed Martin's TADS/ PNVS (targeting and night vision systems used on Apache helicopters) are also being overhauled in partnership with Letterkenny. "Lockheed currently does this work in several locations but we think they will consolidate here," says [Steven Shapiro]. "For three years, Lockheed Martin has occupied a building here and employed 12 people, half of them Letterkenny employees and half Lockheed.

ABSTRACT

Letterkenny has been maintaining Patriot missile delivery systems for over 20 years, with 500 employees who remanufacture the Patriot missile vehicles and launch equipment of one battalion (500-600 soldiers) per year. [...] this year, however, repairs and upgrades to the Patriot missile itself were done at the Red River Army Depot in-Texas.

FULL TEXT

Every business likes to hear from satisfied customers, but few receive feedback as dramatic as Letterkenny Army Depot.

"A soldier in Iraq wrote on the side of an MRAP [mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicle], 'This vehicle saved my life and five others,' took a picture and sent it to us," says Col. Steven Shapiro, commander of the depot near Chambersburg.

"We get letters from soldiers in vehicles hit by IEDs [improvised explosive devices] and photos of PvHINOs [a device suspended in front of a vehicle to pre-detonate IEDs] with holes in them.

"A marine saved by his GMV [ground mobility vehicle, a modified HMMWV (humvee) used by special forces] came here to say thank you to the people who work on the GMV line.

"A lot of the things we build here go straight to Iraq and Afghanistan."

Since 9/11, Shapiro says, the workload at Letterkenny Army Depot has increased from 900,000 hours a year to 3.2 million hours. The 18,000-acre depot currently employs 3,478 people, a combination of Department of Defense (DOD) civilian workers; contract employees hired through Virginia-based DynCorp and RamTech, a private workforce provider headquartered in the Cumberland Valley Business Park, adjacent to Letterkenny; 80 military personnel; and employees of depot tenants, such as the Letterkenny Munitions Center and the Computer Science Corporation.

When Letterkenny opened in 1942, its mission was storing and shipping munitions, trucks and other supplies to support. Allied forces. During the 1950s, the depot moved into maintenance of missile systems, vehicles and other military equipment.

Today, the depot is increasingly expanding into manufacturing, including counter IED equipment; armor kits for vehicles including H M M W V s ; RHINOs; and BIDS (biological integrated detection systems).

Recently, Letterkenny has also begun working as a subcontractor for private companies.

"When Letterkenny is a subcontractor, we establish a of Agreement on Memorandum payment," says Mark Sheffield,

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Letterkenny chief of staff. "We try to project time and material cost, and the prime sends us a check for the amount. Then we provide them a detailed expensing invoice and draw from the prearranged funds."

In 2008, Letterkenny began assembling MRAPs for British defense contractor, BAE Systems. The depot produced just under 580 of the heavily-armored troop transports in less than a year.

"I think that more MRAP orders will come in," says Shapiro, "and this summer, we'll be busy doing those."

Letterkenny has also completed the prototype of BAE's MMPV (medium mine protection vehicle), a mine clearance vehicle that will travel in front of convoys. Full production is expected to begin in late spring with three vehicles assembled daily.

About another proposed partnership with Raytheon Company to manufacture new Patriot missiles and launchers, Shapiro says, "I think with relative certainty this is going to happen. Raytheon has been awarded Ã $3.3 billion order from the United Arab Emirates for new Patriots. We started meeting with Raytheon about 18 months ago and are in a small partnership with them now, building cables and wiring harnesses."

Letterkenny has been maintaining Patriot missile delivery systems for over 20 years, with 500 employees who remanufacture the Patriot missile vehicles and launch equipment of one battalion (500-600 soldiers) per year. Until this year, however, repairs and upgrades to the Patriot missile itself were done at the Red River Army Depot in-Texas. That job is being transferred to Letterkenny, so by October, maintenance of the entire Patriot missile system will be at one depot.

Lockheed Martin's TADS/ PNVS (targeting and night vision systems used on Apache helicopters) are also being overhauled in partnership with Letterkenny. "Lockheed currently does this work in several locations but we think they will consolidate here," says Shapiro. "For three years, Lockheed Martin has occupied a building here and employed 12 people, half of them Letterkenny employees and half Lockheed. That company provides all the management, engineering and supply and buys machining here, as needed. This is a way to get in the door with Lockheed."

"The advantage of these public/private partnerships," says Sheffield, "is that companies don't have to invest in infrastructure and labor. They can concentrate on all the white collar work they do well, and we can concentrate on the blue collar work we're great at."

The quality of Letterkenny's work has been recognized with five Shingo Prizes, which Business Week calls "the Nobel Prize of manufacturing." Named for Dr. Shigeo Shingo who helped develop many of the lean manufacturing processes, the prize is awarded by Utah State University for excellence in manufacturing. Letterkenny's Shingo Prizes were for Patriot missile ground support equipment (2005), HMMWV (2006 and 2007), power generators (2007) and BIDS (2008).

In addition to refurbishing power generators, HMMWVs-17 vehicles a day-, several types of missiles, cranes, mobile kitchens, and other equipment at the Pennsylvania depot, Letterkenny also operates a repair facility in Kuwait for route clearance vehicles.

Recruiting and training employees for all these areas is a challenge. Shapiro says, "Electronics workers are the hardest to find, along with electricians and HVAC people to maintain the depot. We've been working with two-year collegesincluding Harrisburg AreaCommunity, York Technical and ITT-to have their students come here for a paid coop of 640 hours. When they graduate, if they've done a good job, we hire them. So far, 75 people have been hired.

"We've also started working with the Franklin County Career and Technology Center [formerly the vocational technical high school] and will have our first five co-ops from there in February. If we hire any of them, we will send them to degree programs. We're also sitting on the center's advisory councils and helping them craft their curricula for Letterkenny jobs."

Letterkenny Army Depot was downsized in the 1995 round of Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) when several missions were moved to other military facilities, and 1,500 acres were transferred to the Letterkenny Industrial Development Authority, which created the Cumberland Valley Business Park. The 2005 BRAC ordered the maintenance of Patriot Missile moved from Red River Depot to Letterkenny.

The 2005 BRAC Commission also recommended that future BRACs be conducted every eight to 12 years, but another round has not been announced.

"If there is another BRAC," says Shapiro, "we think with the partnerships that bring more work here and flatten overhead, that we'll be here for the long run."

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SIDEBAR

Regional Impact

Letterkenny Army Depot is the top employer (in payroll) in Franklin County, with salaries averaging $53,090 compared with a county-wide average of $33,730. Letterkenny employees also come from four adjacent counties, nearby western Maryland and West Virginia.

The depot pumps approximately $315 million into the area economy through payroll and purchases of goods and services from nearby businesses, including Valley Quarries, Sunset Metal Works, Artistic Lazer Engraving, RamTech Machining, and Applied Industrial Technologies in Chambersburg; Reed Machinery and Equipment and CV Diesel Sales and Service in Greencastle; D.L. Martin and ACS Precision in Mercersburg; JLG Industries in McConnellsburg; and Apparatus Repair and Engineering, Fire-X Sales, Hagerstown Industrial Supply, Landmark Elevator, Packaging Services of Maryland and Bikle Manufacturing in the Hagerstown area.

SIDEBAR

Looking for Outdoor Advertising Firms in the Region ? They're All in the 2009 Book of Lists

LOAD-DATE: February 16, 2009

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

ACC-NO: 12210

GRAPHIC: IMAGE PHOTOGRAPH, Col. Steven Shapiro, commander of the depot

DOCUMENT-TYPE: General Information

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Magazine

JOURNAL-CODE: NVBJ

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