Downsizing detour

HEADNOTE

DoD managers are proving that outsourcing jobs isn't always the best way to save billions.

One day in 1998, managers at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Crane, Ind., heard chilling news: They had to target

nearly a fifth of the sprawling, 100-square-mile base's civilian workforce for possible outsourcing. The Defense Department ordered them to cut $20 million from Crane's annual budget by 2005, which put 576 of the base's 3,100 jobs on the line. In other words, it was time for Crane to ante up its share of the post-Cold War peace dividend.

"We felt we were facing a death of 1,000 cuts. Outsourcing those jobs would have fragmented Crane without our becoming a better organization," says Duane Embree, executive director of Crane. The facility develops, procures and maintains weapons and equipment, such as night vision electronics and acoustic sensors, for the U.S. Navy.

Crane, one of the military's largest ordnance storage sites, was never in real danger of being closed despite the military downsizing of the 1990s. Its civilian workforce has remained relatively steady at between 3,000 and 4,000 employees for much of the decade.