Cyber Command eyeing new DISA headquarters for its base

The U.S. Cyber Command has its eyes on the new Defense Information Systems Agency building at Fort Meade, Md., as the site to locate its headquarters, according to industry and Defense Department sources.

The speculation was reinforced by a PowerPoint slide presentation, obtained by Nextgov, that Rear Adm. Thomas Kendziorski, reserve vice commander of the Naval Network Warfare Command, plans to present next week

In the presentation, which is labeled as being presented at the Sept. 10 annual meeting of the Navy Cryptologic Reserve Association in Portland, Ore., Kendziorski raises the possibility that the Cyber Command would take over the new DISA headquarters building under construction at Fort Meade.

The $390 million, 1-million-square-foot headquarters includes a six-building campus that would provide the Cyber Command with a new facility it needs to conduct operations.

The Fort Meade building designed to replace DISA's aging headquarters in Arlington, Va., just more than a mile west of the Pentagon, includes sensitive compartmented information facility rooms for classified work, built-in fiber-optic networks, and a secure wireless system. DISA was required to move to Fort Meade by the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission.

The DISA Web site for the new headquarters noted the buildings feature conference rooms with a built-in audio-visual system, laptop computer jacks and a "robust IT infrastructure [that] will support current and future enterprise architecture."

Another industry source, who declined to be identified, said the complex represents a "target of opportunity for the Cyber Command that will be hard to pass up." Asked what DISA would do for a new headquarters if it were displaced by the Cyber Command, the source said, "The National Security Agency will find DISA space in one of its buildings."

Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, NSA director, will command the Cyber Command and will pick up his fourth star when it goes into operation on Oct. 1.

Warren Suss, president of Suss Consulting Inc., said it would be a good decision to locate DISA and the Cyber Command at Fort Meade because DISA operates the military networks that the command will defend. But he said he had no insight on possible headquarters realignments.

DISA has spent the past two years trying to lure its mostly Virginia-based workforce to Fort Meade, and an another industry source speculated a loss of the new buildings could make it harder to do so. "People might be willing to make the long commute to a new building but might not do so to work in an NSA hand-me-down," the source said.

The Cyber Command will be part of the U.S. Strategic Command, which has not decided where to locate the Cyber Command, said Navy Lt. Charlie Drey, a spokesman for the Strategic Command. A determination of where to place the Cyber Command is part of an ongoing review by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, he added.

David Bullock, DISA's Base Realignment and Closure Commission executive, said in a statement that the agency plans to begin its move to Fort Meade in 2010.