Explosives Center Fuels Hope for a Tech Hub

Indian Head Site, to Open in 2009, Seen as a Lure for Good Jobs

Cutting the ribbon are, from left, Davinder K. Anand of the University of Maryland; Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes; Richard H. Nadolink, director of the new energetics center; Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski; and Commissioner Al Smith. (By Linda Davidson -- The Washington Post)

A center in Indian Head dedicated to the research, engineering and development of explosives used in bombs and warheads and to their adaptation for other uses may be just the magnet Southern Maryland needs to attract high-paid technology jobs.

The Energetics Technology Center, which will be built near the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Indian Head in northwestern Charles County, is scheduled to open in about three years and will house scientists developing technologies for explosives, propellants and pyrotechnics.

Federal, state and local officials gathered Thursday in the county seat, La Plata, to outline plans for the center and open a temporary office on Centennial Street to serve as the project's administrative hub until construction is completed. They said they believe the center will establish Charles as a niche market in explosives research and production.

"We truly feel this is the key that will open up the economic engine in Charles County to bring the kinds of jobs we want to bring to Charles County," said Commissioners President Wayne Cooper (D-At Large).

Del. Sally Y. Jameson (D-Charles), speaking for the county's delegation to the General Assembly, said: "I expect really big things from this."

So do Sens. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) and Paul S. Sarbanes (D-Md.), who worked with Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) to secure millions in federal funding for the project. Both senators traveled to La Plata for Thursday's announcement.

"Right here, in what was once tornado alley, is now energetics alley," Mikulski said, referring to the 2002 tornado that destroyed much of downtown La Plata. "Boy, isn't this a better place to be."

Elected officials and local leaders waged a lengthy and expensive campaign to protect Indian Head during the Defense Department's most recent base realignment and closure process, and the 2005 BRAC report left the Navy's operation there largely unscathed. For years, the surface warfare center has conducted advanced research in energetics, the military's term for explosives work.

"I was concerned that instead of giving them medals, they would give them pink slips," Mikulski said of people who work at the base, the largest employer in Charles.

The BRAC report effectively recognized Indian Head as the military's go-to center for energetics research and applications.

"Our stock and reputation is rising all the time within the Pentagon because no one has the concentration of energetics enterprise that we have assembled here," Hoyer said in a written statement. Hoyer, the House minority whip, did not attend Thursday's ceremony because of a scheduling conflict.

Sarbanes called the energetics center "a just reward for a community that has had a sterling record."

The Energetics Technology Center project, to be constructed just off the base between Indian Head and Bryans Road, has been in the making for seven years. It is a spinoff of the University of Maryland's Center for Energetic Concepts Development in College Park and is the brainchild of its director, Davinder K. Anand.

"Our beginnings are humble, but our visions are grand," Anand said. "We are establishing a premier center."

The center will be a collaboration between the University of Maryland, the College of Southern Maryland, local government and the Indian Head base. Its new director, Richard H. Nadolink, said it will be a catalyst for high-tech industry in Indian Head.

"What we really want to do is transition these technologies into products, which will create jobs -- not just any jobs, but 21st-century career jobs," Nadolink said.

Southern Maryland officials said they hope the center will help draw the kinds of technology jobs that largely bypassed Southern Maryland (other than around the Patuxent River Naval Air Station in St. Mary's County) during the late 1990s' high-tech boom in favor of places such as Tysons Corner and the Dulles corridor in Northern Virginia.

Charles County's economic development director, John Reardon, said he has received inquiries from private firms considering moving to be near the energetics center. Preliminary talks have begun, he said, with a firm to build a hotel in Indian Head.