| Virginia Tech,
U.Va. proposal prevails for aerospace institute
A new national aerospace-research institute is a good
news/bad news proposition for Hampton Roads.
Langley
Research Center of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration is helping finance the start-up of the
National Institute for Aerospace (NIA) near its Hampton
headquarters. With a potential to attract nearly $400
million in research contracts during the next 20 years,
NASA Langley officials hope NIA will help boost the
region’s sagging per-capita wage and stimulate
economic development.
That’s
the good news. The bad news? Despite being geographically
near NASA Langley, Old Dominion University and Hampton
University are light years away from meeting NASA’s
needs for the new educational/research initiative. That
was evident when Langley, after nearly a year-long search,
awarded a contract to run the aerospace complex to a
consortium spearheaded by Virginia Tech and the University
of Virginia. A proposal championed by ODU and HU was
among a half dozen other competing bids.
That
Tech-U.Va. got the nod was almost a fait accomplit.
Some Hampton Roads business leaders worried the ODU-HU
proposal lacked the cachet that Langley was seeking,
despite some apparent advantages. HU last year earned
research contracts from Langley worth $4.5 million –
the most in Virginia and third-most in the nation. ODU
was second among Virginia schools with $2.3 million
in captured Langley research.
So
what put the Tech-U.Va. bid over the top? Charles Harris,
a director with NASA Langley, said it was “fundamentally
sound in every respect and a superior proposal,”
but declined to elaborate.
Still, it could have been worse. NASA Langley could
have awarded the bid to an out-of-state consortium,
which would have meant that $3 million to $4 million
in annual ongoing research awards would have been spirited
to other regions of the country. And officials with
the Tech-U.Va. consortium have indicated they want HU,
which is the only state school offering a degree concentration
in atmospheric sciences, to participate in shaping the
educational component of NIA.
—
Garry Kranz
Return
to Virginia Business - November 2002
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