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CERDEC Employee Pleased with Early Move to APG
By Paul Wein
With the official move from Fort Monmouth, N.J. to Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG), Md. set for the future, some employees are volunteering to move early and help with the Base Relocation and Closure (BRAC) transition. One of those employees, Kenneth Grippo, said he is very pleased with the decision he made.
“My wife and I really like it,” said Grippo, of his new hometown of Elkton, Md. “It’s nice. It’s more reminiscent of when I moved to Ocean County in 1984. It’s not as built up and even though it is rural, you can still get to a major city if you want to be in the heart of things.”
When he moved to Maryland in April of 2006 for family reasons, Grippo had to transition from his position in Joint Interoperability/Foreign Military Sales (FMS) for Project Manager (PM) Battle Command, a PM where he worked for 18 years in order to move early. PEO C3T did allow Grippo to telework prior to his move, something he did for some time before taking the full time APG-based job in Maryland. Grippo took a position as an advanced technology objective manager for the Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC) Command and Control Directorate (C2D). His wife also took a position in munitions accountability for Army Test & Evaluation Command (ATEC).
Grippo said the 26 mile drive to his APG office from his home takes about 40 minutes. And, 10 of those miles are on the APG post.
“It’s not really a big post,” he said. “It’s spread out nicely and the people here at APG are nice. They’re very chatty and friendly.”
Grippo said the Maryland region has a lot to offer to many regardless of their family situation.
“If you have kids, you’re focused on school systems, so you tend to gravitate toward certain counties,” he said. “Harford County and Baltimore County schools are better. If you don’t have kids, then it really is a clean canvas.”
Grippo said that while he and his wife have plenty of activities to choose from and have explored a good portion of their new surroundings, they have found a particularly favorite activity.
“The upper Chesapeake is beautiful,” he said. “It’s a big boating community where lifestyles revolve around the waterways, so they cater to the boater lifestyle. My wife and I like to venture there and go to all the restaurant-bar marinas. The boater mentality is a lot different. It’s a whole different mentality here.”
Knowing that some people still have many questions and concerns about moving to Maryland, Grippo had some advice for those individuals.
“Come down here and take a look at what the region has to offer,” he suggested. “I find there to be a lot of similarities between Pennsylvania and Maryland; and Delaware and New Jersey. It’s really not that different.”
When asked if he regretted his decision to leave New Jersey and move to APG early, Grippo’s answer was, “Not at all.”
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