Inside a former ice skating rink turned event center, leaders from across North Alabama gathered to talk about what’s next for one of the state’s fastest-growing regions on Wednesday.

The Launch Regional Partnership’s eighth annual State of the Region, held at the Point Mallard Event Center, brought together leaders from its 13-county footprint for updates on workforce, infrastructure, entrepreneurship and the growing connections between communities across the Tennessee Valley.

And one topic carried particularly big implications for the region: the relocation of U.S. Space Command to Redstone Arsenal.

Launch, which now brings together leaders from 13 North Alabama counties, highlighted progress on its regional priorities in workforce development, entrepreneurship, land use and infrastructure, along with new initiatives aimed at strengthening connections across the Tennessee Valley. Board Chair John Allen said the organization’s role is to make sure growth in one community becomes an opportunity for the broader region.

“Regionalism isn’t about one city or just one county in the region,” Allen said. “It’s about the entire region. And North Alabama is not standing still. North Alabama is on the move.”

That regional approach is becoming increasingly important as U.S. Space Command makes the move to Redstone Arsenal.

Col. Raymond Ruscoe, Deputy Director of the USSPACECOM Redstone Transition Team, told the crowd that there are now more than 120 Space Command personnel are already on the ground in North Alabama, with approximately 200 expected by the end of this year and roughly 400 by the end of 2027.

Then comes the big move.

“By 2028, we will have the biggest push,” Ruscoe said, putting the number at about 900. “We will have the preponderance of our workforce here working in Northern Alabama by that point.”

Space Command includes about 18,000 military and civilian personnel worldwide, Ruscoe clarified, but approximately 1,800 positions are expected to relocate to North Alabama.

Building a headquarters

Space Command has secured 960 temporary workspaces across Redstone Arsenal while facilities are renovated to accommodate its classified and technical missions. Personnel are currently being spread among five locations on the Arsenal as work moves forward on a permanent headquarters.

The planned headquarters will provide about 900,000 square feet of usable space and eventually allow the command to operate together under one roof.

“For the first time since 1985,” Ruscoe said, Space Command will have “a unified headquarters, a single building.”

The first visible piece of the permanent footprint is already underway with construction of a warehouse that will provide temperature-controlled storage for equipment, including IT systems.

Planning for construction of the permanent headquarters is also moving forward.

“What we will see is sometime next summer you will see actual groundbreaking of the facility and construction being started,” Ruscoe said.

‘We need people’

The transition also comes with an immediate challenge and opportunity for North Alabama: filling jobs.

Ruscoe said Space Command has positions being posted across its mission areas and expects hiring needs to continue as the move progresses because not everyone currently working in Colorado will relocate.

“We need people,” he said. “As you imagine, not everybody’s going to move from Colorado.”

And Ruscoe made no secret about the appeal of hiring from the existing North Alabama workforce.

“For me as a hiring authority, I would absolutely love to be local because they can start sooner,” he said.

That workforce demand dovetails with one of Launch’s central priorities. During Wednesday’s program, the organization outlined plans to better align workforce resources across its 13 counties, including county-specific workforce pathways designed to identify gaps and connect residents with training, credentials, apprenticeships and jobs.

Launch also announced its first North Alabama Regional Transportation Summit for Sept. 14, unveiled a 28-member regional leadership program called The Exchange in partnership with TVA and announced a new memorandum of understanding with the North Alabama Industrial Development Association to explore greater collaboration between the two organizations. 

With Space Command’s move now in full force, the stakes of that regional approach are becoming increasingly clear.

For Ruscoe, the scale of what is coming to Redstone goes well beyond the headquarters itself.

“What’s coming here to Alabama, what’s coming here to northern Alabama to the area that all of you represent is the United States’ global power to fight wars on and above the Earth,” he said.

And the command must make the move without interrupting that mission.

“While we are moving 1,800 people across the nation, while we are building these facilities, the threat does not go away,” Ruscoe said. “China is not going to stop. Russia is not going to stop.”

“If the flag goes up tonight, we need to be able to perform.”

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