By: Matt Craig, Director of Crane Community Support for Radius Indiana
Naval Support Activity Crane, one of Southern Indiana’s largest employers with about 6,000 workers, released hiring plans for fiscal year 2019 that include adding over 400 new jobs above attrition for both government and contract employees across multiple disciplines.
The base’s two largest commands, Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division and Crane Army Ammunition Activity, will each add to their workforce to meet the demand from the Department of Defense for key activities unique to the technical capabilities, facilities and expertise found at Crane.
Crane Army’s vital work in countermeasures, logistics, production and demilitarization of ammunition; coupled with the upcoming opening of the new Crane Flexible Manufacturing Complex later this year means an increased demand for advanced manufacturing workers who receive specialized training for the Army work.
Due to a large increase in expected workload in both production and logistics operations, CAAA is looking to increase its blue-collar workforce by approximately 45 personnel. The new employees will go through an onboarding process.
On the Navy side, NSWC Crane is experiencing a significant increase in workload within each of its mission areas that include Expeditionary Warfare, Electronic Warfare and Strategic Missions, and plans to add 368 new employees in the coming year and backfill 187 jobs based on anticipated attrition. Careers range from engineers and scientists to technicians and business administration.
This increased capacity is a direct result of demand signals from National Defense and Naval strategies that call on the technical expertise at NSWC Crane, the state’s only federal research laboratory, to expand its role in mission-critical challenges facing the U.S. military.
NSWC Crane will increase its work with Strategic Systems Programs that support the Navy’s submarine and missile technologies through engineering and system architecture for power and energy, guidance, navigation and control and also includes imperative work for the nation’s new super-speed Hypersonic Missile Programs.
Other growth areas include the Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program, which provides enhanced capabilities to existing and new ship combat systems to improve missile defense, counter targeting and counter surveillance as well as the rapidly growing field of Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems that serve to detect, track and defend against drone and other unmanned aircraft.
This increase in jobs is evidence of the strong defense sector here in the Indiana Uplands. The outstanding efforts of the leadership and workforce at Crane strengthen our opportunities on a national level.