Russians and Americans 
work to build alliance

Purpose of the Concept Paper: This concept paper is intended to provide an introduction of the International Aerospace Cities Alliance (IACA). IACA is a joint project between the City of Huntsville, Alabama and the Russian Parliament, The DUMA. The DUMA has allocated fund for Russian participation. Huntsville is now seeking funding to work with the DUMA to develop and implement Phase One of IACA -- one year of formation activities and one year on start up operations.

Introduction and Background

DSD laboratories was asked by the cities of Korolev, formerly Kaliningrad, Moscow Region, Russian Federation and Huntsville Alabama to prepare a concept paper which outlines the rationale for the formation of the International Aerospace Cities Alliance (IACA), and to develop one or more representative programs which could be implemented during Phase One of IACA. It is anticipated that Phase One will last for two years, one year for formation and one year operation. At the end of this two year period, the IACA will be self governing and self sustaining through contributions of the member cities.

For purposes of this concept paper,. The term aerospace means government and/or commercial programs in aeronautics; space; defense; related programs and supporting infrastructures. The term aerospace cities mean cities ad/or regions in which aerospace programs provide employment and economic growth.
The purpose of the IACA is to facilitate governance, business, education, culture and exchange programs between aerospace cities of the world. Membership in IACA would consist of the Mayors of cities of the world having nearby government and/or private sector aerospace facilities. Examples are National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) facilities located near Huntsville, and the Russian Space Agency facilities located in Korolev.

Membership in the IACA would provide mayors a mechanism to develop a variety of business, education, governance, culture, arts and tourism initiatives between member cities. The mayors can use local assets to assist them in IACA initiative-- local Chamber of Commerce; city school systems and Universities; local aerospace companies and state government economic development offices.

The City of Huntsville, Alabama and The Russian Federation Parliament, the DUMA, have agreed to assume the responsibility for Phase One of the IACA. Both partners have established formation teams consisting of representatives of the Mayors office, Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce, Madison County Commission, Huntsville City School System and DSD Laboratories, Inc. The DUMA team consists of federal and business executives.

Meetings have been held in several representative "NASA cities" to develop the concepts for the Alliance: Huntsville, Alabama; Nassau Bay, Texas; Bay St. Luis, Mississippi; Cleveland, Ohio and Hampton Virginia. These "NASA cities" have indicated an interest in joining the alliance. In additional, meetings were held in Korolev and Moscow.

In a letter from Vice President Al Gore, he expressed his support by state "your Initiative has the potential of forging new business, education and technology partnerships that can benefit local communities, industry and international relations. Your vision and commitment are to be commended and I wish you community all the best in this exciting endeavor."

Five interrelated initiatives have been proposed as start up project during Phase One of the IACA. These are Governance, Technology Transfer, Business Incubators, Business Partnerships and School-to-Work programs.

Characteristics of Aerospace Cities

International Aerospace Cities Alliance --

Integrating Aerospace Business, Education and City Governance

An increasing number of countries of the world have aerospace projects and/or programs. Some examples are university research; national security; earth observations; manned and unmanned space exploration; advanced technology development and economic growth opportunities. The United States and Russian Federation are the leader with major contributions coming for the European Space Agency, Japan Space Agency, and Canada. Aerospace programs have significant impacts on local culture, economy, education and city governments. In this regard, aerospace cities have much in common. Aerospace programs provide for technology based jobs that require workers with advanced education and work skills. This workforce results in unique resource demands on local colleges to meet additional workforce education and training requirements. In additional, many of the children of these workers require a higher level of academic training in K-12. Leaders of aerospace cities experience similar hopes and frustrations that come from the impact of the increases and decreases of federal aerospace budgets. This vast reservoir of complementary talents and technologies offer aerospace cities a unique opportunity to develop business and workplace education training of mutual interest.

During Phase One Huntsville will use ongoing programs in governance; business partnerships; technology transfer; business incubators and school-to-work programs to develop partnership programs with aerospace cities in Russia and other parts of the world. These start-up initiatives will be used to define, develop and implement the five initiative during phase one of the IACA. Other aerospace cities will be asked to participate. In addition, it is anticipated that these initiatives would be expanded, as the IACA becomes operational. These projects can be implemented as individual projects or integrated into one program. The exact working relationship between these initiatives will vary with each IACA member.
Governance

The mayor of Huntsville and Russian DUMA would host mayors from Aerospace cities to workshop in Huntsville and Korolev. At the workshop the mayors would discuss the characteristics of their city; resident aerospace programs; aerospace impacts on schools, infrastructure, services and tax revenues. In addition, the mayors would discuss how they were able to react and manage impacts of increases and decreases in funding for aerospace programs on city government management. These workshops would be continued in other aerospace cities as membership increases. This data base of governance issues and lessons learned from operating experience would be shared by al IACA city members and be used to develop working relationships to solve problems of mutual interest.

Technology Transfer

The Huntsville technology transfer team would host seminar in Huntsville and Korolev to assist the DUMA to develop and implement a technology transfer program in Russia based upon a successful program in Huntsville and surrounding regions. In this program the Huntsville team consists of The City of Huntsville, Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce, Madison County Commission, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, US Army and local aerospace industries. The team works with non-aerospace industries in six in nearby states to determine their needs for advanced technologies in their plants and other operations. The team performs a quick assessment of the industry's request for help and assigns the request to one or more of the team members for further assessment and disposition. In most cases a response is transmitted within 90 days.

Other federal agencies and other technology transfer programs would be asked to participate. The first step in developing a technology transfer program in IACA cities is to bring experts together to demonstrate how successful programs work elsewhere. In this regard, Huntsville will host workshops in Huntsville to show IACA cities how to implement technology transfer programs.

Technology Transfer Workshops

The purposes of this initiative are:

1.  Present examples of government technology transfer programs, their funding, management, terms and conditions for industry participation, etc., as models for potential technology transfer programs in IACA cities.
2.  Present examples of federal technologies that have been placed into commercial practice.
3.  Brief participants on advanced technologies having potential commercial application.
4.  Develop contacts and facilitate one-on-one business discussions between IACA businessmen.
5.  Develop skills and practices needed for a series of business development conferences in Alliance cities.

Business Incubators

The use of business incubators in the United States has become a useful tool in developing new businesses. According to the National Business Incubator Association approximately 500 incubation centers existed in 1994 with 8,000 resident businesses (almost 50 percent are high tech and manufacturing). In addition NBIA states that 4,650 businesses have graduated and 80 percent are still in businesses. Incubator programs range from occupants being housed in a fixed location to virtual company approaches -- incubators without walls.
Workshops will be held in Huntsville and Korolev that will show officials of the Russian Space Agency and Russian aerospace industries how to develop and implement a successfully incubator program to convert Russian Space Agency assets into commercial practice. Representatives from model incubators identified by the NBIA would be invited as well as successful local business incubators in Huntsville at Marshall Space Flight Center and NASA Stennis Space Center. The speakers will provide successful technology conversion products and lessons learned. Similar workshops would be provided for other Alliance cities. Virtual incubator concepts would be developed in which one or more of the residents in IACA incubators could cooperate on joint product development programs.

Business Partnerships

The Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce and the Madison County Commission International Trade Program would use their ongoing programs and experience in international aerospace business project to facilitate face to face discussion between Russian and Huntsville business executives. Representative initiative is:
1.  Identify/survey local firms, primarily in the aerospace/defense industry, ding business with or having potential business with Russia or other IACA cities.

2.  Host delegations of business decision makers from Russia and other IACA cities.

3.  Coordinate individual meeting between Huntsville companies and IACA cities.

4.  Organize a local international business development team with expertise to facilitate and implement international business transactions between firms in Huntsville, Russia and other IACA cities.

5.  Expand the North Alabama International Trade Association's Internet Homepage to facilitate electronic data base exchanges and electronic commerce. In addition, NAITA would show other IACA cities how to set up a similar home page.

6.  Develop training programs on how to do business in international marketplaces.

School to work programs

In Phase One Huntsville would develop and implement joint school to work program in Huntsville and Russian Aerospace Cities. Similar programs with other IACA cities would be implemented as appropriate. Programs currently in use in Huntsville as well as others would be used as models. Huntsville programs have a strong interaction with NASA Marshall Space Flight Center and contractors. Students attend training sessions at the sponsor's facilities and perform meaningful duties. Other programs last for one year in which students are given successive assignment in different parts of the company. This approach is designed to represent on career lifetime in a particular workplace. Many of the work programs involve work on space systems and experiments. Other programs concentrate on non-technical subjects. Aerospace experts frequently give lectures at local high schools.

College level programs include the Student for the Experimental Development of Space (SEDS) at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Students from foreign countries participate in SEDS and are responsible for design, development, fabrication, space flight and data analysis from space experiments. Another model program is the Aerospace Scholars Program of the Russia and West Virginia Foundation. Aerospace Scholars students study in West Virginia and Russia and work during the summer in aerospace jobs in Russia and the USA.

The purpose of the school to work program would be to place qualified students in academic and workplace programs with the intent that their development and interactions will result in future international business arrangements.

Check out the letter written by the Mayor of Kaliningrad, Moscow Region (its name has since been changed to Korolev) with initial propsal for the alliance.