VideoRuddock and Henry also point out that there is now a critical mass of companies in the region that can serve as mentors for small businesses or partners for contracts.
But even those companies frequently are running on Murtha earmarks. Perhaps the biggest success story in the district is Concurrent Technologies Corp., a nonprofit technology innovation center that was created through Murtha earmarks in the late 1980s and has received millions in Murtha earmarks ever since.
CTC now has facilities all over the world, annual revenues of more than $230 million, more than 1,500 employees and buildings scattered around the 12th Congressional district — including the John P. Murtha Technology Center.
But some don't work out as well. In August 2004, Murtha announced that another Maryland-based company called Advanced Engineering and Planning Corp. had recently opened an Indiana office and would do "much of the development work for a $3 million contract" awarded by the Navy to maintain a logistics software system.
Today AEPCO — a KSA client — has a staff of one person in the district, and its office is in the same building as Aeptec's.
Murtha's office declined to provide comment for this article.
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