New transition center marks beginning of job search for chem weapons workers

by Cameron Steele
csteele@annistonstar.com
July 15, 2010

A ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Anniston Chemical Activity base Wednesday celebrated the opening of a new job transition office.

That’s an official indication that the more than 140 chemical storage workers should start looking for new jobs soon.

Beginning today, all ANCA workers will have the opportunity to sign up for resume classes and appointments with a job transition specialist whose only focus is to help workers find employment when ANCA closes after its chemical weapons stockpile is completely destroyed – something that could happen by late 2011, according to Army spokesman Mike Abrams.

ANCA workers do not destroy the weapons –- they’re the people who’ve stored them since the mission started in 1995.

Now, there is a mixture of excitement and anxiety at the storage facility, a tenant of the Anniston Army Depot, as the storage workers begin to consider what will happen to them when all of the chemical weapons are destroyed.

Donna Vice, a 50-year-old toxic material handler, said she’s sad the mission is almost over and is worried about her future.

“I wish my job here weren’t going away,” said Vice, an Alexandria resident who’s worked at ANCA for more than seven years. “I’d love to have this job forever.”

Vice said she hopes to land a job at another depot tenant.

Her co-worker, Bill Angles, expressed more excitement at the imminent ANCA closing.

That’s partly because he gets to take full retirement when he leaves.

“I’m ready for it,” said Angles, a 55-year-old Eastaboga resident.

About 20 percent of the storage workers will be eligible for full retirement by the time the incinerator has finished destroying the chemical weapons in April 2012, said Lt. Col. Andrew Herbst, ANCA commander.

The future is more uncertain for the other 80 percent, who will have to find other jobs in an economy that’s still suffering from the lingering effects of recession.

But Herbst said he and other ANCA management are dedicated to making sure all employees have something nailed down by the time the mission is completed.

“Our goal is that there will be no one forced to retire, no one forced to lose their jobs,” he said.

The opening of a job transition office at ANCA is one of the ways Herbst hopes to fulfill his promise to storage facility employees. Former depot human resources specialist Noma Norton has joined the ANCA team as the transition specialist.

Herbst said Norton will help employees explore a number of opportunities that will help them find work after the stockpile’s complete destruction.

Those options include switching to a similar job at another tenant organization through a depot program called Job Swap, or moving to one of two other chemical weapons stockpile facilities in Colorado or Kentucky.

“We are going to take care of our people,” Herbst said.

Chemical weapons have been stored at the depot since the early 1960s. ANCA was established in 1995 as a national effort to reorganize the way those weapons were stored. Their destruction began in 2003, after the federal government approved the installation of a chemical munitions incinerator at the depot as a way to abide by a federal law requiring the military to get rid of all chemical weapons.

As of midnight Wednesday, almost 79 percent of Anniston’s chemical weapons stash has been incinerated, said Abrams.

Before Vice joined her fellow employees in an hour-long meeting about the services the new transition office offers to them, she noted how much she’d miss her coworkers when ANCA shuts down.

“We’re all like a family here,” she said.

Contact Star Staff writer Cameron Steele at 256-235-3562.