Matthew Santoni, The Examiner
2006-10-19 09:00:00.0
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BALTIMORE -

Maryland officials are hoping to help fill a flood of incoming government jobs by stepping up the placement of interns, starting them early in the lengthy screening process for security clearances.

With thousands of new government and government-contractor jobs coming to Maryland through the base realignment and closure process, government officials, colleges and corporations are searching for ways to get security clearances for employees.

“Most of the government jobs on-base are going to require security clearances, and a significant portion of the secondary jobs with contractors are going to require clearances,” said Brig. Gen. J. Michael Hayes, BRAC coordinator for Maryland’s Department of Business and Economic Development.

With anecdotal evidence suggesting that it can take up to 18 months to go through the local and federal background checks required for clearance, studies have recommended that the process be started early with students and interns, said Dyan Brasington, director of economic and workforce development at Towson University.

In a draft report created by Towson and DBED, it was recommended that the state work to identify and recruit workers in the technical fields that will require security clearances, focusing on those who have been “prescreened” through previous jobs, college or high school internships, or military service.

For guidance, Towson studied the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University. At Hopkins, interns can get a special “student clearance” that allows them access to some protected information, Brasington said.

The temporary clearances won’t give interns the same access to information as fully-vetted employees, she said, but may eventually be graded along the same lines as the government’s Confidential, Secret and Top Secret levels of clearance.

Placing students and recent graduates in government and contractor jobs can simultaneously start students on the road to clearance while building up a high-tech, high-security work force, Brasington said.

At Fort Monmouth, N.J., which will be closed by 2011 and have many of its functions moved to Aberdeen Proving Ground in Harford County, officials have begun recruiting recent graduates at Maryland job fairs so those employees could follow their jobs when they are moved to Maryland, said Fort Monmouth spokesman Timothy Rider.

In Harford County, recruiting will soon start as early as high school, where officials are working on a Homeland Security magnet program that will explain the benefits of holding a security clearance in the job market, said Frank Mezzanotte, one of the officials developing the program.

msantoni@baltimoreexaminer.com