Can Rome Labs innovate a defense against threats of a federal budget cut?

Near classrooms on the second floor of Utica College?s newest building, security is tight.

Past surveillance cameras, two identification card scanners and a fingerprint reader are cybersecurity computer labs used by the FBI, the Secret Service and other federal offices doing work so sensitive that college officials won?t identify the agencies.

Like Utica College in the last decade, dozens of cyber-related programs and businesses in Upstate New York have grown around the Rome Research Site at the former Griffiss Air Force Base. Syracuse?s Lockheed Martin and SRC have offices there.

Officially, it?s called the Information Directorate of the Air Force Research Lab, Rome, and it?s still commonly referred to as Rome Lab. Some 1,300 work at the labs there, carrying out highly classified projects and developing things like off-the-shelf supercomputers to help the military sift through the trove of video surveillance data gathered from drones and satellites.

Thousands more are employed in the surrounding area, many doing cutting-edge work in technology and computer defense. Companies have grouped near the lab to cash in on its tools and expertise, fulfilling planners? vision to reinvent Griffiss after the Air Force base closed in 1995.

?The lab is the glue, it?s the reason we?re all here,? said Joseph Giordano, director of the cybersecurity program at Utica College.

But the lab is in trouble again, and a new effort is being mounted to keep it and the region?s computer-industrial base strong.

President Obama?s 2013 budget proposes cutting Rome Lab?s Air Force funding by $30 million, or 18 percent.

Air Force funding represents about 25 percent of the lab?s annual budget, most of which comes from other federal agencies. The cuts were made from Air Force science and technology acounts, which represent about 25 percent of the lab?s funding. The rest of the funding comes from other Air Force accounts and other federal agencies.

But to those who have weathered prior defense cuts at Rome, the proposed cuts are worrisome.

Given increased spending on Internet and computer security across the government, Rome should be booming, not contracting.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said a cyber attack could be ?the next Pearl Harbor,? crippling power, financial, security and government systems.

With a regional focus, political leaders and economic development teams are gearing up to prevent what they call an economic catastrophe.

?The disappearance of the lab would be a disaster for the economy there,? said Randall Nichols, the former director of Utica College?s cybersecurity program.

Air base reborn

During its 1950s heyday, Griffiss Air Force Base was a self-contained city that employed some 18,000 military and civilian workers. By the 1990s, that dropped to around 6,400. When the base closed in 1995, 4,500 jobs disappeared.

What was left was 3,500 acres of runway, abandoned buildings and an exceptional research center ? Rome Lab.

Decades before the word ?cybersecurity? became common, researchers at Rome Lab were doing that work.

?Cybersecurity? covers the protection of the Internet as well as the electronic devices of U.S. residents, infrastructure, defense systems, companies and government agencies. The threats could come from computerized terrorism backed by foreign governments and groups, or the malicious mischief of loners.

Such computer research dovetailed with the Air Force?s radar work, also being done at Rome.

?There is no single geographic region that has been doing more research in information science and technology for a longer sustained period of time than the region around Rome Labs,? said John Bay, a former chief scientist for the lab.

Since the air base closed, community leaders have created the Griffiss Business and Technology Park, with a core of high-tech cyber-industry businesses around the lab.

More than $460 million in public and private money has been invested. The mixed-use park ? which includes a freight rail line, a Family Dollar warehouse and the largest importer of olive oil in the nation, Sovena USA ? employs 6,000, including military employees.

Rome Lab had a close call in 2005, when the Base Realignment and Closure, or BRAC, commission targeted it for closure. Local leaders beat that back and work continued at Rome Lab, with even more focus on cybersecurity.

Fight for survival

In 2010, the national research landscape changed in a big way when the Pentagon established the U.S. Cyber Command, headquartered at Fort Meade, Md.

That?s when former directors and scientists of Rome Lab realized they had to fight for work that had long come their way.

Fort Meade and other parts of the country were spending lots of money and moving quickly to become the next ?center of gravity? for cyber research and development. Rome representatives worried about Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio ? which, as headquarters for the Air Force Research Laboratory, is Rome?s home office. The Ohio base has 27,000 employees; Rome Lab has 1,336.

The Air Force Research Lab is comprised of 10 branches, or directorates. Five are in Dayton. One ? the information directorate, which deals with communication and cybersecurity ? is at Rome.

?We have indicators that some of the reorganization and funding shifts are a result of trying to move some of the work to Dayton,? said Mary Carol Chruscicki, executive director of the Central New York Defense Alliance. ?They (Dayton area representatives) would love nothing more than to acquire the mission of the Rome site.?

In April 2011, Rome leaders created that Defense Alliance for their own promotional campaign.

The nonprofit alliance aims to raise Central New York?s cyber industry?s profile throughout the state and nation. Each of the 28 members paid at least $5,000 to join. They include Syracuse University?s Center for Advanced Systems and Engineering, Binghamton University, Utica College, Rochester Institute of Technology and State University of New York Institute of Technology.

Touting cybersecurity success is harder than it might seem. Outside of the Air Force, Rome Lab has never been good at promoting itself, said Bay, a board member of the alliance. Cybersecurity companies and related government agencies don?t like to talk about what they do, let alone trumpet their successes.

?You don?t want to get out in the public and say, ?They (hackers) can?t nail us,?? said David Fastabend, the vice president of Advanced Information Systems at ITT Exelis, one of the research companies in Griffiss Technology Park. ?They will come after you from all over the world.?

Exelis was the first Internet- and computer-related company to open at the reconfigured Griffiss park in 1997. The company?s Rome office employs 140, who do work for federal agencies as well as protect Exelis? computer networks at offices in 16 countries around the world.

Elsewhere at the park, computer scientists at Rome Lab last year assembled one of the world?s fastest computers ? the Condor ? by linking together 1,716 PlayStation 3s.

Take the fight to D.C.

Though the cyber world has no physical or political boundaries, no ?front line,? the front line for federal funding is in one place ? Washington, D.C.

To get Rome?s story out, local leaders are engaging lobbyists and consultants. All but one have defended Rome Lab before.

They?ve hired Park Strategies, an Alexandria, Va., lobbying firm founded and run by former U.S. Sen. Alphonse D?Amato to work in Albany and Washington.

They?ve hired Public Private Solutions Group, a number-crunching consulting firm in Alexandria, Va. A few years ago the firm helped build the economic argument for keeping the lab in Rome. One point: demonstrating that lab operations cost less at Griffiss Business & Technology Park than they would at an Air Force base. The city of Rome provides police and fire protection, water and sewer services and road maintenance.

They?ve hired Ted F. Bowlds, who retired last year as an Air Force general. Bowlds last led the Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts. In the late 1990s he commanded Rome Laboratory; later, the Air Force Research Laboratory in Dayton.

New York state has hired Hyjek & Fix, a Washington lobbying firm that has defended Rome Lab before. This time Hyjek is also defending New York?s nine other major military installations against cuts. The state will pay Hyjek & Fix up to $1.4 million over three years.

The state has committed another $500,000 to conduct an economic impact study of its 10 main military installations, which include Rome, Fort Drum and Hancock Field in Syracuse.

In April, U.S. Rep. Richard Hanna, R-Barneveld, spoke at a House Committee on Armed Services meeting, calling for more funding for Rome. Top Air Force officials assured him of Rome Lab?s long-range importance, Hanna said in a news release.

Steve DiMeo, president of the area?s business promotional arm ? Mohawk Valley Economic Development Growth Enterprises ? has waged the battle to protect Rome before. Such assurances, he said, aren?t enough for him to let down his guard.

?I want (them) to back up those words with solid evidence of commitments,? he said.

Training programs

Perhaps no academic cyber program in the region has grown as fast as the one at Utica College.

In 2006, the college hired Randall Nichols to expand its cybersecurity program, which then had 29 students. That led to construction of an $8 million Economic Crime and Justice Studies and Cybersecurity Building, a two-story structure that looks like a giant computer chip. Nearly 400 students are now enrolled in Utica College?s undergraduate and graduate cybersecurity programs.

In 2009, Utica College added an online master?s degree program in cyber security, intelligence and forensics, and it will graduate its first class of 40 master?s students in May and another 45 by December.

They will fill a pressing need. A 2010 report by the Center for Strategic and International studies cited a ?desperate shortage? of U.S. cybersecurity professionals who can ?design secure computer systems, write safe computer code and design ever more sophisticated tools needed to prevent ... an attack.?

The strength of the region?s cybersecurity-related academic programs and their close relationship to Rome Lab is one of the Defense Alliance?s chief selling points.

Professors like Joon Park, at Syracuse University?s School of Information Studies, spend their sabbatical years doing research at Rome Lab. Park teaches information security courses at Syracuse. At Rome, he has been working to improve security for cloud computing, which is a way for users to access via the Internet computing power and capacity beyond their specific machine.

There?s hardly a school in the Rome area that hasn?t benefited from the cybersecurity work that?s grown up around Rome Lab. In 2010, Mohawk Valley Community College was awarded $2.8 million in federal money to offer a foundational cyber-related job training program. Instructors from Exelis and Rome Lab offer more advanced training at a building on the former air base that once held a B-52 bomber simulator.

The reconfigured building is called the Griffiss Institute of Information Assurance. Beyond its classrooms, lecture hall and offices, the Griffiss Institute serves as a technical intermediary between the lab, private businesses and academic programs, helping spin out technologies into the private sector.

The institute also connects lab scientists with area middle and high schools to promote science, technology, engineering and math.

The Griffiss Institute recently hosted Rome Lab?s fourth annual Challenge Competition for high school students. Winning teams were awarded summer internships at Rome Lab or at one of the businesses in Griffiss park.

The lab?s science and math promotion tries to address a shortage of workers in the field. Only U.S. citizens can obtain security clearances to do classified government work. A 2006 National Science Foundation survey noted that 63 percent of engineering doctorate degrees in the U.S. were earned by foreign students.

Home to innovation

Businesses like Assured Information Security Inc., at the Griffiss Business park, wouldn?t exist if not for Rome Lab.

AIS was established in 2001, a spinoff of work at the lab. From a handful of workers it has grown to employ 117. AIS lists 33 job openings on its website, most for computer and software engineers.

But with uncertainty in the federal budget process, Rome?s business owners and community representatives will be closely monitoring Washington for years to come.

In the short term there?s a possibility at year?s end for automatic and drastic defense budget cuts resulting from sequestration ? cuts Congress ordered as part of the settlement of last year?s federal budget stalemate.

?Nobody knows how those cuts would play out,? DiMeo said.

Further down the road, there are possibilities for more rounds of the base-closing process in 2015, 2017 and beyond.

If Rome Lab closed, companies and researchers would eventually migrate toward wherever the new center of cyber research was located, Bay said.

So local leaders are trying to build on Rome Lab?s strengths as fast as they can, seeking private, state and federal investment to strengthen Rome?s operation, while letting the nation know how important Central New York is to U.S. cybersecurity.

?If we succeed,? Bay said, ?defending against a BRAC decision will take care of itself.?

Contact Dave Tobin at dtobin@syracuse.com or 470-3277.

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