"This was a bean field two years ago"

Up Highway 231 about an hour's drive from Owensboro into southern Indiana lies the small community known simply as Crane. It's anything but simple. Since 1941 when it was first established, the Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division has grown into the third largest naval installation in the world by geographic area and employs about 5,000 people. It sits mainly in Martin County but also lies in portions of Lawrence and Greene counties.

Last week, I joined a group advocating the four-laning of U.S. 231 north to Crane for a tour of the new Westgate technology park that sits just outside the Crane installation. "This was a bean field two years ago," said our tour guide, Mike Burch, CEO of the Crane Federal Credit Union, which has a spectacular new facility in the park. That's Mike in the dark suit talking to us outside the SAIC building, one of the jewels of the park, in the photo.

Crane, we were told, was originally expected to lose about 700 jobs when the infamous BRACC report came out in 2005. Ironically, jobs have grown instead and, today, private contractors that work with Crane and occupy the tech park employ about 750 people. We toured a building occupied by SAIC—a building with different levels of top secret security. SAIC's website says it's a "scientific, engineering and technology applications company that uses its deep domain knowledge to solve problems of vital importance to the nation, and the world, in national security, energy and the environment, critical infrastructure and health." Whatever that means, it's mighty impressive. SAIC also has operations in the nearby small towns of Bloomfield, Bedford and Odon as well as Indianapolis. We were told the company plans to build another facility next to its current one in the Crane tech park.

Those of us on the tour came away surprised at the irony of Crane. Here's a community in the middle of rural southern Indiana where the average non-military worker is making $57,000 per year. Ten-percent of SAIC's employees drive 70 miles one way from Indianapolis every day. At least one drives from Terre Haute. It's a community that's thriving thanks to military needs and advanced technology that helps keep our country safe. We were told Crane has plans to become a "center of excellence" for alternative energy in the future.

That will certainly lead to more private jobs—many of them in the middle of a technology park that was a bean field two years ago.