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Base cuts were not the bane of these cities

The possible loss of one of Malmstrom Air Force Base’s missile squadrons — and 500 military personnel with it —would certainly be a blow to the regional economy.

But significant missile cutbacks at Air Force bases in Wyoming and North Dakota didn’t end up being the end of the world for those communities.

Great Falls civic and business leaders might be heartened to learn how similar-sized communities in those states coped with major cutbacks at their missile bases in recent years.

Community leaders in Cheyenne, Wyo., say their regional economy is booming so much that they could barely “discern” the loss of several hundred missile personnel at F.E. Warren Air Force Base a few years ago. The Cheyenne base had its 50 huge MX, or Peacekeeper, missiles pulled as a result of an arms-reduction treaty. The base retained its 150 smaller Minuteman III missiles.

Recovery took longer in Grand Forks, N.D., which lost nearly 1,000 base personnel after all 150 Minuteman III missiles were removed from the base following a 1995 decision by the Base Closure and Realignment Commission. Most of the more modern missiles were shipped to Malmstrom.

Compounding the eastern North Dakota community’s problems was a devastating flood of the Red River that runs through town two years later. It caused as many as 3,500 more people to leave town, according to city information officer Kevin Dean, a TV anchor at the time.

“But Grand Forks is a proud, almost stubborn community, and we’ve more than made up those losses since then, thanks to dramatic growth in manufacturing and a stronger Canadian economy nearby,” he said.

Great Falls residents are worried about losing one of Malmstrom’s four missile squadrons and a projected 500 of the base’s 3,600 military employees.

A Pentagon report that came to light last week justified an earlier decision to trim the nation’s arsenal of land-based Minuteman III missiles from 500 to 450, and called for eliminating a squadron of Malmstrom’s Minuteman III missiles that lies between Shelby and Dutton.

If Congress doesn’t block the action, maintenance specialists could start removing missiles from the 564th Missile Squadron as early as May 23. Malmstrom would retain three squadrons and 150 missiles.

It took about three years to remove the 50 MX missiles from F.E. Warren.

That’s nearly twice as long as it would take to remove Malmstrom’s 50 Minuteman missiles, said Tucker Fagan, CEO of the Wyoming Business Council and a retired Air Force missile commander who served at both Malmstrom and F.E. Warren.

Like Malmstrom, F.E. Warren retained 150 smaller Minuteman III missiles in silos scattered through Wyoming, Colorado and Nebraska.

The Air Force had projected that F.E. Warren would lose about 600 military positions attached to the MX when the missile removal was completed in 2005, said Staff Sgt. Kurt Arkenberg, an F.E. Warren spokesman.

But some of the missile operators and maintenance people apparently were able to convert from MX to Minuteman missiles, he said, because the number of base military and civilian employees dropped off by only about 250, from 4,400 to 4,150.

Malmstrom also has about 4,100 military and civilian employees currently and it’s not known how many could convert between the different types of Minuteman III systems.

“Did losing the Peacekeeper missile at F.E. Warren impact the Cheyenne economy? Sure it did,” said Fagan. “But it was hard to discern since the area has experienced so much private growth in other areas.”

Cheyenne is near the Colorado towns of Fort Collins and Boulder, at the north end of the Front Range area that is growing rapidly and booming with high-tech development, he said.

Cheyenne Mayor Jack Spiker said the loss of the missiles and personnel “didn’t have much impact at all.”

“The community has embraced growth, and we’ve worked really hard and successfully to bring more good jobs to our community,” he said.

It’s helped that Cheyenne is near the crossroads of north-south and east-west interstates, Spiker said, noting that Lowe’s and Wal-Mart have each built distribution centers that will employ about 1,200 people.

In addition, the National Center for Atmospheric Research is building a supercomputer in Cheyenne that’s expected to attract high-tech businesses, he said.

While Great Falls might not be booming as much as the northern Colorado/southern Wyoming area, private economic growth in Montana could help offset the loss, Fagan said.

Great Falls Development Authority President Brett Doney has said he believes recent and ongoing economic growth here will help offset the Malmstrom losses, but that federal, state and local leaders still need to look for replacement missions for the Great Falls base.

Things looked grim in the mid-1990s in Grand Forks, N.D., home to the University of North Dakota, and Grand Forks Air Force Base.

The base had two strong missions, a missile wing and a bomber wing, as late as 1993. Then, in rapid succession, community officials were told the flying mission would be converted to an aerial refueling wing of indeterminate size and the base lost what amounted to a battle of regional wings during the 1995 BRAC to see which base would get to keep its missiles.

“We were absolutely dumbfounded and shocked to lose our missile wing because it had always had excellent recommendations and inspections,” recalled attorney John Marshall, the longtime chairman of the city’s Council on Military Relations. “We were not happy campers.

“Grand Forks itself is about the size of Great Falls, and you can’t lose 1,000 military members and their families and the amount they spend in the community and expect to replace it easily,” he said.

Real estate prices took a serious hit and car dealers and other retailers trimmed employees because of the domino effect, Marshall said.

The 1997 flood temporarily expanded the Red River’s width from a few hundred feet to 22 miles, he recalled, flooding most of Grand Forks and all of neighboring East Grand Forks, Minn. Air Force personnel helped evacuate the town and provided temporary housing for thousands of residents.

“Up to that point, the Air Force folks had been very good friends,” Moore said. “But after they put us up, hugged us and supported us, they became like family.”

Grand Forks put millions of dollars into replacing its infrastructure, Dean said, which was a big factor in several businesses relocating or adding plants there. Among them were two manufacturing companies, Cirrus Aviation of Duluth, Minn., which employs more than 600 people making planes, and LM Glasfiber, a Dutch wind-turbine company that employs more than 700 people making windmill blades.

The Air Force base is fairly small, with about 2,300 military employees but has steady missions, Marshall said.

It ended up being one of the largest supertanker wings, with four squadrons of refueling jets. That version of the tanker is being phased out, he said, but Grand Forks has a good chance to get a new generation of tankers.

In the meantime, it’s scheduled to be one of the first bases to receive unmanned aerial vehicles, Marshall said. It’s set to get the Global Hawk, a large surveillance plane, and the Predator, a smaller fighter.

With all those changes, Grand Forks’ population has climbed from about 51,000 just after the flood to about 54,000 people, Dean said.