News of the Day

There are a couple nice little articles in todays FNP business section.

There is an interesting story about a new web site that will take the mystery out of finding a job at Ft Detrick:

Website takes mystery out of job search at Fort Detrick

Originally published May 21, 2008

By Ed Waters Jr.
News-Post Staff

	ON THE WEB Fort Derick employment guide n www.frederickworks.com, click on Fort Detrick Employment Guide icon

Fort Detrick, the military base at the center of Frederick, is a campus full of agencies, contractors and businesses.

So how do you find a job there? To most people, it’s a mystery.

“If you look at the Fort Detrick home page, there may be only four or five jobs there,” said Laurie Holden, director of Frederick County Workforce Services.

“It is not comprehensive for all the contractors and businesses there,” she said.

After two years of working with various groups, Holden’s agency has added a Fort Detrick Employment Guide to its website, frederickworks.com.

“We went to groups such as the Fort Detrick Development Office, Fort Detrick Alliance, Human Capital System at Fort Detrick, Women in Defense, a lot of others,” Holden said.

Some of them had tried to solve the jobs search problem, but Holden said her agency finally decided to do it.

“We didn’t recreate anything, we simply organized it, took the mystery out of where to look and how to apply,” she said.

Holden said used the example of the value of the site after meeting a young man at a Christmas party.

“He was a West Point graduate, had served in Iraq, had a family, and was driving four hours a day for work in D.C. at the Department of Defense. The department is at Fort Detrick and I thought, ‘How can he apply for a job there?’ Happily, it did work out for him. He is working at Fort Detrick” Holden said. “I think of all those cars going down (I-)270 every day.”

The website features links to major employers and agencies, a section on how to apply for jobs and resources available at the Frederick County Workforce Services.

OK, I don’t mean to be a pain, because this is a great idea, but I have been all over the website. I was hoping to find a nice long list of openings.  At least this does provide links to a number of different sites that may open doors for some people.  Let’s hope it’s a work in progress that will improve over time.

I also want to give a shout out to Marie Keegan and the Fort Detrick Alliance.  This is a relatively new group that was established to build relationships between the Agencies at Fort Detrick and the local business community.  I plan on enlisting as a sponsor in order to benefit from some of the programs they offer and opportunities to work with groups doing stem cell research and regenerative medicine.

One of the interesting things I found on the Alliance web site was this press release by Blaine Young dated May 15th.  It looks like it was run in the Gazette, but I couldn’t find it anywhere.  I found it most entertaining:

Show support for the work done at Detrick

I support Fort Detrick and the job it has been doing to protect America from foreign threats for more than 70 years.

I have been thinking of the dedication and service that we have been given by the good people who have worked at Fort Detrick all these years as I prepare to attend Armed Forces Day on Saturday. The base will open its gates to the public and give us an opportunity to thank the men and women of the armed forces who keep us safe.

While I have been anticipating Armed Forces Day, I am reminded of how much I am disgusted by the actions of some of our so-called ‘‘leaders,” including the Board of County Commissioners.

Led by Commissioner David Gray, who has never met a NIMBY he doesn’t like, the commissioners have joined the faint chorus of a few narrow-minded individuals in protesting the expansion of the biodefense laboratories at Fort Detrick.

They have even managed to hoodwink U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski into asking the National Academy of Sciences to review public health and safety concerns.

All of this has been done, and no doubt motivated at least in part, to keep their names in the headlines in spite of the fact that an environmental impact study has concluded that the proposed expansion complies with all applicable laws and regulations.

So we are just going to have another government agency perform a duplicate study, at our expense, so that a few politicians can assure their NIMBY supporters that they are watching out for their selfish self-interests.

Shame on them. Here are some facts about Fort Detrick.

Like it or not, we live in a dangerous and sometimes evil world. There are people and groups, often supported by rich governments, who would use any means available to them to kill us in vast numbers if they had the ability.

Fort Detrick is our first line of defense against biological attack. Who are we to say that we are too good to have this important national mission accomplished right here on our home soil?

There are around 8,000 people employed at Fort Detrick, and with the expansion there will be another 1,400 jobs on the way. These are high-paying jobs, averaging more than $50,000 per year.

In case anyone hasn’t noticed lately, the economy is not exactly on an upswing. So not only do we have dedicated public servants right here in our home city and county protecting us from foreign attacks, but we have an extraordinary boost to our economy as a byproduct.

And yet all we seem to hear about Detrick is that local government should do everything in its power to stand in the way of progress at the base.

Commissioner Gray and his band of sycophants seemingly could care less about the broader purpose being served by the people at Detrick, or the impact on our local economy.

But what I don’t understand is why we haven’t heard more from the City of Frederick.

The city is the most direct beneficiary of the economic benefits spawned by the work done at Detrick. The time will never be better for the city government to contrast itself with the narrow-mindedness of the county commissioners on this issue, and come out in full support of Fort Detrick and the work they do for all of us.

I would urge them to take this action.

Any questions I may have had about what is being done, and proposed to be done in the future, at Detrick were answered by my good friend, Col. Mark Hoke, a former county commissioner.

Col. Hoke lives a quarter-mile from Fort Detrick. Anyone who knows the colonel knows he is a person who speaks his mind and is as honest as anyone could be.

Col. Hoke told me that concerns spouted by the opponents of biodefense expansion are ‘‘a crock of a well-known substance.”

He still keeps his hand in base planning through a support organization, and if he had any problem with what was being proposed at the base, there is no doubt we would hear it.

Yet, all we hear and read about in the local media are the shrill voices of the few opponents. People like Col. Hoke are ignored.

I want to close by repeating my support to the men and women who work at Fort Detrick and help keep us safe. And don’t forget that Saturday is Armed Forces Day. Come out and thank these good people in person.

OK, that’s enough for today.  I’ll blog about the other interesting article tomorrow…..