For an unprecedented third year in a row, the Engineer Research and Development Center has been named by the Army the Research Laboratory of the Year.

Headquartered in Vicksburg on Halls Ferry Road, ERDC is the R&D arm of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, with a resume that boasts military troop support and protection, civilian engineering projects both at home and abroad, cutting-edge technological discoveries and environmental protection and preservation.

No other lab has won the award two years in a row, let alone three, ERDC director Dr. James Houston said Friday.

“I’m just so proud of our people,” he said. A lot of his work as director involves “bragging” about ERDC’s employees, he said, “and that’s easy to do.”

The criteria for winning the award is tough, and puts ERDC in competition with labs that receive as much as 10 times the direct funding that ERDC gets. Most of ERDC’s operating costs come from contracts with the Department of Defense, other federal agencies, state and local governments and private industry.

Houston said the process required ERDC to detail accomplishments in research, development and management over the last year, plus what the center judged as the best example of its contribution to the War on Terror.

ERDC’s application included extensive written reports on major research and management initiatives; responses to comments from the previous year’s award cycle; and more than 100 pages of information and statistics such as staff journal publications, grade point averages of new hires and the number of patents obtained in the year.

Award panel members also visited the site, conducting interviews and observations.

Finally, Houston traveled to Washington, D.C., giving a 25-minute oral presentation followed by 20 minutes of answering questions.

One development that helped ERDC win was its Human Capital Initiative, a program that supports the people Houston loves to brag about — ERDC’s employees.

“This initiative will assist ERDC’s team members from the day they are hired to the day they retire with an ultimate goal of making ERDC the employment choice of the best and the brightest engineers, scientists and support personnel in the United States,” he said.

Houston himself will be retiring at the first of the year, stepping down from official duties but still planning to work at ERDC on an unpaid emeritus basis.

“It does seem special to win this now — like a football player, you like to retire while you’re at the top,” he said. He’s already thinking about what the center can do to nab its fourth straight award next year, with a little good-natured kidding around with current deputy director Dr. Jeffrey Holland, who’ll take over the reins in January.

Holland has already told him he’s going to win six in a row, Houston laughed.

ERDC’s Vicksburg campus employs about 1,800 federal, contract and student workers and, through payroll, pumps more than $110 million into the local economy.

Four laboratories are centered here. Three others are Hanover, N.H., Champaign, Ill.; and Alexandria, Va.

“There is no other Army, nor is there even a defense department laboratory organization with the broad, diverse research capabilities of ERDC,” Houston said. “Our research protects our deployed soldiers and our research protects threatened and endangered wildlife. Our project areas range from snow-covered glaciers to sand-covered deserts.”

*

Contact Pamela Hitchins at phitchins@vicksburgpost.com