By Scott Powers ORLANDO SENTINEL
With $40 million in federal grants on the table, Space Coast entrepreneurs, companies and local government agencies had no shortage of proposals Tuesday of how spend it to bring jobs to an already-struggling region that is bracing for deep NASA cuts.
One company wanted federal money to help build high-efficiency cars in Brevard County. Another sought money to make high-efficiency light bulbs. A third wants to see an international space, Earth and oceanic science think tank developed at Kennedy Space Center.
When the space shuttle program ends, probably early next year, up to 9,000 NASA jobs will go away at KSC. President Barack Obama has pledged $40 million to spur new jobs growth and created a federal task force to decide how to spend it.
That brought more than 30 people to a day-long forum at Orlando International Airport Tuesday, to make pitches for some of the money.
Space Florida, the state’s public-private aerospace business development agency, will forward the presentations to Obama’s Task Force on Space Industry Work Force and Economic Development, a group of federal officials which has until Aug. 15 to report its recommendations.
“This is an opportunity to seek ideas,” said Space Florida President Frank DiBello, who promised to forward all the presentations, unfiltered and unranked, to the federal task force.
The employers seeking help ranged from long-established companies, such as NASA’s prime space shuttle contractor United Space Alliance, to startups such as Avera Motors, which proposes to build diesel-hybrid cars in Brevard County. Most promised jobs. And most wanted money.
The task force’s challenge is deciding which applicants offer the best chance to help a county struggling with an 11.4-percent unemployment rate even before the loss of shuttle jobs and the 10,000 or more others that will disappear as stores and restaurants cut back or close.
“It’s going to take more than one company to come forward with the ideas that we’re going to need to create an environment where we have enough jobs to cover all the workers that will be displaced with the shuttle retirement,” said Jim Kell, deputy associate program manager at United Space Alliance.
On Tuesday, USA helped remind everyone of the urgency when it announced it will lay off up to 1,000 Florida employees on Oct. 1, as the shuttle program winds down. Only two more launches are planned, the second early next year, although some in Congress are pressing for a third launch.
DiBello said the USA layoffs were not unexpected. He also said he understands that many of employees are leaving voluntarily.
“That doesn’t make it any easier on the community,” he said. “There is no silver bullet for what we are facing in a large layoff. All we can do is rebuild a block of jobs at a time.”
Among the rebuilding ideas presented Tuesday:
– USA pitched four proposals for testing or refurbishing military equipment for the Department of Defense, using a big space-shuttle parts depot in Cape Canaveral that it now runs for NASA. The company sought between $1 million and $4 million for each of the programs, saying each could provide between 100 and 400 jobs.
– Avera Motors asked for $10 million toward a car factory in Brevard County to build the diesel-hybrid cars developed by the company. Its president, R.J. Scaringe, projected nearly 100 jobs by early 2012 and more than 1,000 by 2015.
– Ron Morgan, president of the American Millennium Foundation of Merritt Island, proposed an “International and Space Science Center” to house scientists from throughout the world who would take advantage of NASA research into space, life, geologic, oceanographic and atmospheric sciences. With $5 million in startup, he estimated, the center could create more than 500 jobs.
– Advanced Magnet Lab of Palm Bay sought $10 million to commercialize superconductive technologies it is developing, which its president, Mark Senti, said can greatly improve energy efficiency at companies with huge banks of computers. “The technology is mature and now is the time to commercialize it,” Senti said.
– Brevard Workforce Development Board, the state-sponsored job training and placement agency, asked for $20 million, in addition to the $15 million it received through a different federal grant last month. The new money would focus on training and employment opportunities for non-technical skilled workers such as clerks and secretaries, board president Lisa Rice said.
– NASA itself proposed a federal inter-agency engineering center to pool engineering for cross-agency purposes, to be developed at facilities likely to close at the space center. Tracy Anania, KSC’s director of human resources, said $2.4 million could spur 200 jobs.
– The Canaveral Port Authority brought several proposals, including $30 million for a new marine terminal, $8 million for mooring berths, $500,000 for a study of an industrial park and $200,000 for a study of a convention center – none of them having anything to do with space or technology.
Still, authority chief executive officer Stan Payne said a trend toward more short-distance sea shipping creates real opportunities, as he displayed a photo of ships being unloaded at the port
“This is a picture of economic activity in Brevard County,” Payne said. “This is what’s important.”
Scott Powers can be reached at spowers@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5441.
