In this series, ClearanceJobs will take a look at booming “spy cities” across the country and around the world—cities that have seen massive growth as hubs for intelligence agencies and activities
“The fifth night we passed St. Louis, and it was like the whole world lit up.” — Huckleberry Finn
Many things come to mind when you think of St. Louis, Missouri. The Gateway Arch, of course. The World’s Fair and the Judy Garland film set there, Meet Me in St. Louis. Anheuser-Busch. Mark Twain, and if you’re particularly bookish, Jonathan Franzen. The Rams (well, the football team of fifteen years ago, maybe). On the other hand, there are things that don’t come to mind when you think of St. Louis. Foremost: legions of analysts hunched over maps and satellite imagery, studying terrain, gravity, light, and elevation in order to produce the most precise geospatial-intelligence in the world. As it turns out, spies are to St. Louis what apple pie is to the U.S. of A.
St. Louis is home to two major facilities of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, an office that concerns itself with—you guessed it—geospatial-intelligence (or: GEOINT). But what is GEOINT? In a 2005 memorandum to the principal deputy director of national intelligence (PDDNI, and pronounced “P-Didney,” really!), the NGA described GEOINT as the “exploitation and analysis of imagery and geospatial information to describe, assess, and visually depict physical features and geographically referenced activities on the Earth.” GEOINT consists of “imagery, imagery intelligence, and geospatial information.”
For a while, the NGA operated in relative obscurity. To give you some idea of how far the agency has come, President Obama first learned of the agency at a Five Guys burger joint in May 2009. Two years later, the NGA would play a pivotal role in the hunting and killing of Osama Bin Laden. You’ll recall that the SEALs had a mockup of the Abbottabad compound at their disposal. How precise was that model? The NGA used laser radar and imagery to determine not only the dimensions of the compound, but also the number of residents, their height—even their gender. (NGA’s nickname for the conspicuously tall man—Bin Laden—at the compound? “The Pacer.”)
(See also: 10 Things You Might Not Know About the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.)
Even before that, though, GEOINT’s stock was on the rise. In 2003 it received a name change conspicuously upgrading it to a “three-letter agency,” akin to the CIA, FBI, and NSA. (Let’s overlook the convenient hyphen that shields it from the abbreviation “NGIA.”) Today the agency employs 15,400 people, making it fourth in size among its three-lettered kin. The agency is headquartered at Fort Belvoir in Virginia, but has a major presence in St. Louis. This strange Midwestern presence is due to the NGA’s lineage. Before there was an NGA, it was the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (with its miserable four letter abbreviation), and before that, there were a handful of disparate agencies to include the Defense Mapping Agency, whose aerospace center was located in St. Louis. And not to get all Book of Chronicles here, but before the St. Louis site was called the DMA Aerospace Center, it was known as the Aeronautical Chart and Information Center for the U.S. Air Force. Before that, it was called the Army Air Corps Aeronautical Chart Plant. Before that: the AAC Map Unit. That’s six names in seven decades, which also makes it a profit center for the business-card-and-stationery industry.
JOB OPPORTUNITIES IN ST. LOUIS – LICENSE TO KILL NOT REQUIRED
The point is that geospatial-intelligence is firmly entrenched in the St. Louis area, to include not only installations and facilities but also a deep well of analytical experience going back generations. And as we’ve seen from previous entries in the Spy Cities Off the Map series, where there’s a spy agency, there are defense contractors—and more importantly, jobs. So who’s hiring out there, anyway? You’re at Clearance Jobs, so you’ve come to the right place. St. Louis is home to defense contractors both great and small, and jobs tend to range from intelligence analyst to information technology professional. Those with offices in St. Louis include ASRC Federal, which notably handles enterprise resource planning for NGA; Paladin Consulting, which presently needs software developers; Newberry Group, known for their IT and data center support services; Ball Aerospace, which is hiring Java programmers, and Wiser Company, which is looking for a secretary. (Not every job requires a computer science degree or a license to kill.)
Area defense contractors aren’t limited to working with the NGA. Scott Air Force Base is a 27 minute drive away and plays host to some serious commands, including Air Mobility Command, Transportation Command, and the U.S. Air Force Network Integration Center (part of Air Force Space Command, and which “supports the nation’s warfighters with decisive cyber capabilities for mission success”). The demand for logistics experts and cyber technical services is pretty much inexhaustible. Among those hiring is Northrop Grumman, who is looking for pilots and computer network engineers, and in its St. Louis office, geospatial engineers.
MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS
Because St. Louis is a much larger city than the storied Sierra Vista, for example, there’s not much point in running down the things you can do in the area should you relocate for work. (Others have done so in extraordinary and tempting detail.) But things you might not know include their school ratings, which average an undistinguished 4 out of 10, wITH some excellent schools in the mix; the crime rate, which is improving and nowhere near as troubling as the raw numbers would indicate; and the cost of living, which is 6.6% below the national average.
