Panel votes to keep 150 jobs at nearby Crane

The Crane Naval Surface Warfare Center in southern Indiana would keep 152 jobs it had been expected to lose under a recommendation approved Wednesday by the federal Base Realignment and Closure Commission.\nThe panel voted during hearings in Washington not to shift the electronic warfare jobs from Crane to the Naval Air Station at Whidbey Island, Wash. The jobs, related to an electronic countermeasure system used in some Navy aircraft, were among more than 600 that Crane stood to lose under an earlier Pentagon recommendation.\nAn analyst who studied the proposal recommended against it, saying it made little sense to duplicate a system designed to support an aircraft that is being phased out in 10 to 15 years.\nDoing so would "break up the synergy at Crane, which has been identified as the center of excellence" in electronic warfare, said analyst Tom Pantelides.\nCommission member Samuel Skinner echoed the praise for Crane, referring to it as the military's "jewel in southern Indiana."\nJohn Clark, the governor's senior adviser on economic growth, said the vote made it appear that the commission had accepted Indiana officials' argument that it made more sense to consolidate such specialized work at Crane rather than to scatter it to other centers.\n"The basic argument we had been making ... is that we have already achieved critical mass on site for these kinds of activities and that it should stay in place and actually be enhanced as opposed to busted up and diffused," he said.\nThe jobs shifted back to Crane included those of about 31 engineers and 107 technicians, said Mike Gentile, director of the Southern Indiana Business Alliance.\nAbout 4,000 people now work at the center some 30 miles southwest of Bloomington.\nGentile said how Indiana officials' suggestions fared should become more clear Thursday when the commission's votes resume.\n"The arrow's pointed in the right direction," he said.\nThe commission will send its final report next month to President Bush, who could make his own changes. Congress also will get the chance to reject the plan after Bush considers it.\nThe hearings in Washington ended Wednesday with no action on the Pentagon's proposal to add 3,500 jobs at the Army's Defense Finance and Accounting Service center, located at the former Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis.