When the Department of Defense closes a military base, economic hardship often follows for the town, but that is not the case in Lubbock 10 years after the axe fell on the Reese Air Force Base.

Sunday, the Reese Technology Center, a research and business park occupying the land once utilized by the Air Force, celebrated a decade of civilian management and operation following the Base Realignment and Closure process, which closed the 2,400-acre installation in 1997.

Todd Reno, director of business development at the center, said the Reese Technology Center is currently the only discontinued military base to complete the Base Realignment and Closure process and is a model for the successful transition from a military installation to a civilian campus.

"Hard work and great partnerships has been the key," he said. "There have been a lot of great people involved in this process - a lot of people pulling and urging to push this along. In 1995, people heard we might close, and they got together and decided to be proactive. They realized this was not going to be an airport. They looked at it as a business, and they quickly focused on ways to bring other people in."

Reno said the center has recovered approximately 700 of the 1,200 civilian jobs lost when the government closed the base, mostly in educational research and technology research.

He said the 13 full-time tenants have brought much of the economic opportunity back into the Reese campus.

"We're kind of the poster child, leading the pack of bases going through this process," Reno said. "We are showing them that, hey, they can do it. You can be successful. We get a lot of calls from other bases that are about to close asking us, 'Hey, how did you do it?'"

The center is now self-sufficient, which is rarely the case when it comes to base closures, he said. Many other closed bases rely on taxpayer dollars to sustain the property where old military bases sat and to keep those areas vitalized.

"What's great about us is that we don't get any money from the city," Reno said. "Taxpayers aren't paying for anything, but they're getting all the benefits."

The Lubbock Police Department Training Academy has been located on the Reese campus for approximately five years, and Lt. Ralph Bowen with the Lubbock Police said he believes it is a great place for the training facility, especially when it comes to training for automobile maneuvers.

"We are not quite as cramped," he said. "Prior to this, we had to work with the airport and use their runways out there when they weren't busy. Basically, we're more out of the way. We don't interfere with other people's business. They don't have to worry about the noise of us running our cars up and down the road."

Lacretia Robinson, the night manager of Doodlebud Square, a day-care facility on the Reese campus, said about half the children at the day care are children of employees and students who work and learn at the center.

"It's good to have a day care out here," she said. "I like it out here because it's so quiet, and all the other people are good about letting us know if they're going to be making a lot of noise so we can be prepared for it with the kids."

Justin Sharbutt, office manager of Supachill Technologies, a cryogenics and food research company leasing land on the Reese Technology Center's campus, said his company is looking forward to Reese becoming a foreign trade zone.

Foreign trade zones are designated areas where the normal tax hassles and sluggishness of U.S. Customs regulations are not as strict or slow.

Sharbutt said his company also likes Reese because the center provides its tenants with ample room to grow.

"It'll be great for us because we'll definitely need the space," he said. "This building in particular is great because it can provide us with lots of space. There's an advantage for having space for all the big machines we're going to need."

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