BusinessTN

No one in the United States Navy advances in rank without first being reviewed in Millington, Tenn.

"You have to call Millington if you want to know where you are going next,” says Capt. Matthew Straughan, commander of the Naval Support Activity Mid-South base 20 miles north of Memphis. He oversees the Navy’s hub of personnel administrative functions, including the board of detailers, which reviews promotions.

The former naval air base has attained this level of importance after periodically redefining its mission since being created in 1917 as a U.S. Army Signal Corp aviation school. Today, not only has it dodged another round of base closures, but it stands to see its personnel ranks nicely supplemented as several Naval operations elsewhere are shuttered.

The military base realignment of the late 1990s appeared to be a blow to Millington. It meant a large loss in population and, therefore, state-shared taxes for the area. But while the base lost its 7,000 transient sailors, it gained a group of higher-paid and permanent career Navy personnel. In years past, the average Navy salary in Millington was $15,600. Now, salaries average $37,200 for the roughly 4,000 people employed in and around the base. For Millington, this demographic shift has meant a small retail and real estate boom.

”Many establishments wouldn’t even look at us before 1996,” says Ordis Copeland, the executive director of the Millington Chamber of Commerce. “They were not seeing the right income thresholds. Now Millington is in a position where we can decide what we will be as we grow.”

The mission of the base shifted when the base became the center for the Navy Personnel Command and the Naval Recruiting Command. These functions moved from Washington in the late 1990s. “The move really worked out well,” Straughan says. “We’re centrally located, and the cost of living is much less here than in D.C.” The central location is key because most personnel decisions are made by groups of Navy officers who fly in to Millington to review each applicant one by one.

That advantage paid big dividends in May when Millington learned that another 1,000 jobs might be heading to the base. The Department of Defense recommended consolidating there the Navy Reserves personnel function in New Orleans and some training functions in Pensacola.

Navy officials have said closing the New Orleans base to consolidate the human resource functions has been talked about for years. The DoD’s base realignment and closure plan, or BRAC, seems to be the first formal attempt at this. A former Millington commander, Navy Rear Adm. Jim Hinkle, told New Orleans’ Times-Picayune in June that it has always made sense to consolidate those functions in one place. If Congress approves the BRAC plan—which might happen by November—personnel would begin arriving in Millington next year and the New Orleans base would close by 2011.

Millington Mayor Terry Jones welcomes the kind of worker the move would bring to the area. “If a city were allowed to pick and choose new residents, it would, of course, want those who could help build the education and experience resources, bring the financial ability to buy homes, start businesses, participate in community activities and support the local economy,” Jones says. “The potential 1,000 BRAC-transfers certainly fits that description.”