Category Archives: Military Base Closings and Defense Industry Downsizing

Germany

CC assisted the German States of North Rhine Westphalia and Rheinland-Pfalz to organize two international defense conversion conferences, beginning with the first in Dusseldorf, Germany in 1996.  Based on the overwhelming success of the Dusseldorf conference, Kaiser was asked to organize and lead a second delegation of American Mayors and local government officials to a second United Nation’s sponsored conference in Kaiserslautern, Germany in 1997.  The UN then asked Kaiser to organize a third international conference in the United States, which was scheduled to have taken place in San Francisco, California in 1998, just prior to the enormous UN budget cuts when the U.S. Congress refused to pay its UN dues.  The meeting was postponed and eventually canceled, but not until after Kaiser had personally raised $50,000 for the UN conference and had secured a commitment letter from San Francisco’s Mayor, Willy Brown.

 

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Military Base Closure/Conversion in China

 

At the request of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), UNDDSMS, and China’s CAPUMIT, Mr. Kaiser helped organize “The Round-Table on International Cooperation for Military Restructuring,” in Beijing, China on October 13-14, 1997.  At the conclusion of the conference, Ford Motor Company announced it would convert one of the Chinese military facilities to civilian purposes for production of small passenger vehicles in China.

 

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Panama

 

At the recommendation of a Florida Senator, Kaiser was asked to assist Panamanians with the closure of 14 American military bases scheduled to be closed in Panama on December 31, 1999 in conjunction with the transfer of the Panama Canal.  The economic challenges for all sectors of Panamanian society were overwhelming.  Kaiser was asked to organize and lead a delegation of five international base closure experts to Panama.  The delegation included a former Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, a Mayor, a representative from Germany’s renowned Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC) and Kaiser as a local government expert.  But it was Kaiser’s speech and his popular Grass-roots Approach that was cited three separate times in the final report by conference rapporteurs  as the way forward for Panamanians, including, requiring all members of Panama’s civil society to participate in the conversion process.

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South Africa

 

CC was asked by the South African government to assist that country with post-apartheid economic development activities related to the closure of military bases and the downsizing of defense industries in S.A.   CC worked with South African universities, NGO’s and the South Africa’s Departments of Defence and Public Works to develop a national strategy for the conversion of the first three military bases slated for closure and reparations.   Kaiser also reviewed proposals on behalf of the World Bank to provide technical assistance to local governments in S.A., and later hosted a delegation of South African Generals, DoD officials and Public Works personnel as part of a World Bank sponsored tour to communities in the USA that had been affected by military base closure and defense industry downsizing in the post-Cold War era.

 

 

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The National Action Plan on Military Base Closings

A National Action Plan

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The U.S Department of Commerce

Capital Consultants has been a regular consultant to small companies working with defense conversion and military base closure, including Mendez England & Associates, an 8A-minority firm based in Washington, DC. Capital Consultants assisted Mendez England in organizing Defense Conversion and Entrepreneurial Development Seminars in eight American cities affected by military base closures and defense industry downsizing on behalf of the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The cities included: San Antonio, Texas; San Diego, California; St. Louis, Missouri; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Jacksonville, Florida.

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U.S. Conference of Mayors

Although originally founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1985, Capital Consultants moved to Washington, DC in 1990 and until quite recently was located at the United States Conference of Mayors (USCM), just two blocks from the White House.  USCM is a non-profit membership association of mayors with populations of 30,000 or more.  It is the premier, bipartisan organization representing cities in the United States interacting with member mayors and city governments, the White House, and Congress.  As a client, Capital Consultant’s primary issue for the Conference of Mayors included economic development in the post-Cold War era (i.e., the closure of military bases and defense industries and its affect on cities).  CC’s report on behalf of the nation’s mayors to the President of the United States and the 104th Congress entitled, “A National Action Plan on Military Base Closings: Recommendations from the Mayors’ Task Force on Military Base Closings and Economic Adjustments,” led to several new pieces of legislation on Capitol Hill in 1995 and 1996, and continues to be one of the most important works on military base closure in America.

Capital Consultants is not only familiar with the most recent government actions affecting cities in the United States, but also actions in cities across the globe as people everywhere deal with the challenges of post-Cold War “conversion.”  Capital Consultants has also collected numerous models or “Best Practices” of local economic development and private industry conversion success stories from companies and communities throughout the world.

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U.S. Local Examples

In addition to representing non-profit associations, Capital Consultants also consults directly with individual cities, mayors and city managers on specific management issues for cities.  For example:

  • CC assisted numerous cities with the challenges of military base closure.  In the case of Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, Capital Consultants worked on the only overturned BRAC decision, which reversed a Congressional action to close parts of Fort Buchanan Army Base in Puerto Rico.
  • In Richmond, California, Capital Consultants was successful in obtaining two OEA grants for the city to plan for the reuse of a former naval refueling depot within its city limits.
  • For the Joliet Arsenal Redevelopment Authority (JADA), Capital Consultants assisted in identifying federal funding and also provided technical assistance to help with the planning and redevelopment of the former Army arsenal, which was not included on the BRAC list.
  • For Duluth, Minnesota, CC’s founder, Michael Kaiser, wrote the necessary proposals to obtain state and federal funding to transfer surplus military property to create the Natural Resource Research Institute (NRRI) on a closed Air Force base in 1983, long before the BRAC Law even existed.  The NRRI is designed to help create jobs and diversify the local economy through the creation of marketable products and services indigenous to the region.
  • For St. Cloud, Minnesota, Mr. Kaiser served as a consultant to the city and to the nearby St. Cloud State University to obtain state funding for an Advanced Manufacturing Center in a highly competitive, statewide Request for Proposals to assist small manufacturers in Central Minnesota.

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