Electronic Systems Center (ESC)

Electronic Systems Center is a dynamic organization with the important mission of providing the latest in command and control and information systems for the Air Force, the Department of Defense and our allies. It currently manages approximately 200 programs, and has an annual budget of more than $3 billion. Many of their systems represent America's most valuable defense assets, such as the E-3 AWACS and the E-8 Joint STARS. It is a product organization of Air Force Materiel Command and is located at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass.

Formerly known as Electronic Systems Division, ESPC became part of Air Force Materiel Command on 1 July 1992 when Air Force Systems Command and Air Force Logistics Command were merged as part of an Air Force reorganization to better meet the challenges of the future. Hanscom Air Force Base owns neither runway nor aircraft. Hanscom Field, adjacent to the base, was turned over to the Massachusetts Port Authority and is now operated as a civilian airport. Although no military aircraft have been stationed at Hanscom since 1973, the base uses the main runways at Hanscom Field. ESC develops and acquires systems that combine computers, radars, information displays, and communications gear. These systems monitor enemy forces and allow U.S. commanders to make quick decisions based on the latest information and quickly transmit those decisions to troops in the field.

Among the systems developed by the Electronic System Product Center are the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS), the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System, the North American Aerospace Defense command center in Cheyenne Mountain, Colo., and the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS). ESPC does not design or manufacture equipment; civilian contractors do that. In its system acquisition mission, ESPC serves as manager; determining the eventual user's operational needs, defining systems to best meet those needs, soliciting proposals from industry, selecting contractors to build the product, monitoring the contractor's progress, and eventually testing the equipment to ensure it meets the user's requirement.

With its annual funding profile of over $3.3 billion, Hanscom AFB has a substantial economic impact on the Massachusetts and New England economy. Compared with the sales of Massachusetts firms, Hanscom AFB would rank among the top four industrial organizations in the state and sixteenth in New England. The Hanscom complex, including MITRE Corporation and MIT Lincoln Laboratory, has nearly 13,000 military and civilian employees with an annual payroll of more than $633 million.