Within the SEAGO region, Cochise County has the largest economy with much of the economic activity related to Fort Huachuca, an active U.S. Army installation located in Sierra Vista. As of late 2009, approximately 3,200 active duty military personnel were assigned to the fort.
There are also approximately 4,000 military trainees (students) temporarily assigned to the fort at any given time for training. In January 2010, the Department of the Army announced the planned relocation of the 86th Signal Battalion from Fort Huachuca to Fort Bliss, Texas.
This action represents a decrease of 487 military authorizations and one civilian authorization at Fort Huachuca. Implementation of these changes is scheduled to be complete in July 2011.
Fort Huachuca is Cochise County‘s top employer, according to the Cochise College Center for Economic Research’s (CER’s) annual Top 75 Employer Survey. Fort Huachuca has been the top employer in Cochise County every year since the CER began conducting the survey in 1999. According to Arizona Daily Star‘s annual “Star 200″ employer survey, the fort was the seventh largest employer in Southern Arizona in 2009.
As of the CER’s 2009 top employer survey, conducted in July 2009, Fort Huachuca employed 10,146 fulltime equivalent (FTE) employees, which included 3,266 active duty military personnel permanently assigned to the fort, 2,842 Department of the Army civilian employees, 127 part-time civilian employees directly employed by the fort, and about 3,974 military students present at the fort for training.
Although the fort trains more than 15,000 students each year, students arrive and depart at various times throughout the year, with approximately 3,974 present on any given day, as of the CER’s most recent survey. An FTE employee is equal to one fulltime or two part-time employees. The fort’s number of FTE employees includes only those workers employed directly by the fort. Not included in the fort’s numbers are workers who report to work on Fort Huachuca but are not employed directly by the fort.
These include employees of defense contracting firms in the Sierra Vista area, who are reported by the contracting firms that directly employ them.
These include Northrop Grumman Corporation, which is the county’s fifth largest employer, and NewTec, LLC, which is the county’s 12th largest employer. In 2009, seven of Cochise County‘s top 75 employers were professional and business service firms whose customer base, in whole or part, was Fort Huachuca.
This included Northrop Grumman, NewTec, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), ManTech Telecommunications and Information Systems Corporation, L3 Communications Command & Control Systems and Software (C2S2), Integrated Systems Improvement Services (ISIS), and All Star Technical Services.
Combined, these seven firms employed 2,301 FTE employees in 2009, or 9 percent of the total workers employed by the county’s 75 largest employers.
Reach beyond Cochise County
Not all of these employees work in direct support of the fort as several of the firms have customer bases well beyond Fort Huachuca. For example, Northrop Grumman and SAIC serve customers across the United States and internationally from their sites in Sierra Vista, but also do a small portion of business in support of the fort.
Also not included in the fort’s numbers are employees of the Fort Huachuca Accommodation Schools (FHAS), which reports its employees separately and was the county’s 35th largest employer in 2009. Although located on Fort Huachuca, FHAS schools are Arizona public schools that fall under the Arizona Department of Education.
The FTE numbers also do not include employees of the AAFES Post Exchange (PX), U.S. Post Office, colleges and universities, and concessionaires located on post.
In 2008, the Maguire Company, in collaboration with ESI Corp, released the results of its Economic Impact of Arizona’s Principal Military Operations study, commonly referred to as the Maguire Report. According to the study, the direct, indirect, and induced employment impact of Fort Huachuca on Cochise County was 26,921 FTE jobs, which includes the fort’s direct employees, as well as those employed due to government contracts and spending by the fort and its employees.
Nearly 83 percent of the indirect and induced employment generated by Fort Huachuca occurred in the county’s retail trade and services industries.
Total impact $2.4 billion annually
The total economic impact of the fort on Cochise County was estimated at $2.4 billion annually. Nearly 42 percent of this impact was the result of indirect and induced economic activity in the county‘s retail trade and services industries.
The report also estimated that the direct, indirect, and induced economic activity of Fort Huachuca generated $23.2 million per year in local sales tax and $17.3 million in local property tax in Cochise County.
In recent years, water use by the fort, as well as water use that results from Fort Huachuca’s indirect and induced employment, and any resultant population increases, has been an environmental issue.
A June 2007 biological opinion issued by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) examined the environmental impact and concluded that the proposed ongoing and future military operations and activities at Fort Huachuca were not likely to adversely affect endangered species.
The biological opinion noted that Fort Huachuca has been a recognized leader in energy and water reduction initiatives for more than a decade; water use had been reduced by over 50 percent, or over half a billion gallons per year; the fort had been below the federal energy conservation goals for more than a decade; and the fort had increased the use of renewable energy in the form of solar and wind, neither of which consume water in the production of electricity.
Perhaps most important to the future of Fort Huachuca, the FWS biological opinion determined that Fort Huachuca can accommodate additional growth, accomplish the mission, and continue to meet water conservation measures.
Other industries of importance in Cochise County are tourism (particularly the cities of Tombstone and Bisbee) and agriculture, discussed in detail in separate sections of this document, as well as services that support the existing population (government, educational services, retail trade, and accommodation and food services).
Cochise County has the highest proportion of privately owned land on Arizona’s 15 counties at 40 percent and is one of only three counties in the state without an Indian reservation.
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