The impact of Arkansas military installations is far-reaching and dramatic.
Pilots from five nations friendly to the United States are beginning to arrive at Ebbing Air National Guard Base in Fort Smith, Arkansas. There, they will learn to fly the F-35 Lightning II, the most lethal fighter aircraft of the U.S. military and an expanding array of allies. The new F-35 training program — under the Pentagon’s Foreign Military Sales (FMS) regime — is part of an intensifying U.S. effort to remain militarily supreme in what is shaping up as the era of “Great Power Competiton.” For the Fort Smith region, it’s an opportunity that could inject north of $1 billion into the economy.
“This is going to be transformative for Fort Smith,” says Air Force Col. (Ret.) Rob “Gator” Ator, director of Military Affairs at the Arkansas Economic Development Commission (AEDC). Ator helped lead the effort to land the new mission. “Any time you inject more than a billion dollars you didn’t have before,” he says, “you’re going to change things.”
It’s largely for that reason that the successful effort to secure the project, a victory announced on March 10, 2023, by Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, was a multi-year, full court press by Arkansas leaders. In addition to AEDC and the Fort Smith Chamber of Commerce, it involved the state’s political representation in Washington, several of whose members — including Senators Rep. Steve Womack — enjoy powerful seats on congressional military affairs committees. Then-Gov. Asa Hutchinson played a key role as well, according to Tim Allen, the Fort Smith Chamber’s president. Allen recalls a dinner at which Hutchinson hosted a delegation from Singapore, a key participant in the program that also includes Poland, Germany, Finland and Switzerland. The Singaporeans, says Allen, were expressing a desire for a longer runway than what existed at Ebbing.
“Gov. Hutchinson immediately took that issue off the table and said we’d extend it by 1,300 feet,” Allen says. “He said, ‘Don’t worry about it. We’ll have it ready before you get here.’ And that was a big, big moment.
Fighter pilots are learning to fly the F-35 Lightning II at Ebbing Air National Guard Base in Fort Smith, Arkansas.
Photo courtesy of DVIDS
“Nobody thought we could do it,” says Allen, but the runway extension was completed in 12 months, with most of the $22 million cost absorbed by the state and the rest by local agencies. The F-35 program is expected to create hundreds of support jobs at Ebbing and more off-base, including construction jobs needed for the housing of foreign visitors associated with the mission.
“Just think of the mission as a magnet for defense contractors coming to Fort Smith,” says Allen. “Lockheed is already here with more than 100 people. Northrop Grumman and Raytheon, both partners in the F-35, have said they’re interested in coming. We believe there’s a Department of Defense future here in Fort Smith.”
Seizing the Momentum
Ebbing is one of five military installations in Arkansas, the others being Little Rock Air Force Base, the state’s largest; Camp Robinson, located in Pulaski County and Joint Force Headquarters of the Arkansas National Guard; Fort Chaffee Joint Maneuver Training Center near Fort Smith; and Pine Bluff Arsenal in southeast Arkansas. Together, according to Ator, these installations account for some 26,000 jobs and $6.3 billion in economic impact, up 33% since 2016.
“You add on what’s beginning to happen at Ebbing and some other projects,” he says, “and I expect it to take another huge jump.”
The 6,000-acre Little Rock AFB employs about 7,000 military and civilian personnel, making it the fifth-largest single worksite in Arkansas. It’s home to the C-130 School of Excellence, which trains aviators from 47 countries on the workhorse transport plane.
“Everybody who flies the C-130,” says Ator, “comes to Little Rock to train.”
In addition to a $1.9 billion economic impact, the base confers other benefits to the Little Rock community. Witness the cybersecurity program at nearby Jacksonville High School, which base officials helped to establish with a $600,000 grant meant to establish a needed pipeline of cyber warriors. A full four years of study, says Ator, can lead to a promising future for graduates.
“We’re not just giving grades,” he says. “There’s a certificate on the back end. So, if a kid goes through the course of instruction, they’re going to be able to claim a job paying $70,000 a year or more.”
Arming Friends Under Siege
Occupying the grounds of the former Shumaker Naval Ammunition Depot in Camden, the 19,000-acre Highland Industrial Park has become the economic backbone of Ouachita County in southern Arkansas. The park hosts major operations from some of the nation’s top military contractors, Lockheed-Martin, Aerojet Rocketdyne, General Dynamics and Raytheon among them. More are likely to follow. Lockheed-Martin and Aeroject Rocketdyne, the park’s largest tenants, each employ more than 1,000 defense workers.
According to Ator, contractors at Camden are producing some of the most impactful weapons in use on global battlefields, including munitions being used to defend Israel from rocket attacks and Ukraine from Putin’s Russia. The General Dynamics facility, he says, recently won a billion-dollar contract to supply Ukraine with 155-millimeter artillery shells. Soon after, a General Dynamics-Lockheed partnership signed on to build rocket motors for Israel’s “Iron Dome” air defense system.
“There’s a lot of stuff going on out there,” says Ator, “and all of it is very meaningful.”
