Date: 01/19/2010

San Antonio's already robust information technology sector could be poised for remarkable growth over the next few years if civic leaders can make good on a plan to tap even further into the booming cyber security industry.

That's the idea behind a strategy, dubbed the “cyber action plan,” unveiled Tuesday at the San Antonio Greater Chamber of Commerce's Economic Outlook Conference.

The plan involves leveraging the city's status as the second-largest cluster of cyber security operations in the country and using the U.S. Air Force's decision to base its cyber command here as a catalyst to propel the Alamo City into the national spotlight as a “center for excellence” in cyber security. As part of that plan, leaders hope to influence the government to relocate more cyber security jobs here, attract additional private defense companies to the area and push legislation that could provide federal funding for local projects and schools.

The goal in a nutshell: turn San Antonio — long known as Military City, USA — into “Cyber City, USA.”

“Cyber operations and security is big in San Antonio,” said Matt Pirko, a lead member of the chamber group advocating for the cyber action plan and a site manager for ManTech International, a cyber security defense contractor. “In fact, it's one of the pillars San Antonio is putting its name upon, along with tourism, banking and finance, biomedical and the military.”

Members of the chamber group say the IT sector, backed by growth in cyber jobs and Internet-related businesses like Rackspace Hosting Inc., could eventually rank among the most lucrative sectors for the city in terms of economic impact. The IT sector could double in size over the next five years, they say.

One Trinity University professor, however, was more cautious about her predictions. “We're always a little more conservative, but it certainly has the potential,” said Mary Stefl, who co-authored an economic impact study released Tuesday on the local IT sector. In that report, researchers concluded the IT industry generated $8 billion in economic impact for San Antonio. The study showed the industry grew by 20 percent, or $1.3 billion, from its economic impact of nearly $6.7 billion in 2005, the last year the chamber produced a study on the local IT sector.

That's still far behind the bioscience industry, which had an economic impact of $16.3 billion in 2007, and the $14.4 billion the manufacturing industry was responsible for in 2006.

“If you want to ask the question what will the overall impact be for IT in San Antonio in five to 10 years, it's going to considerably bigger than it is today,” said Richard Butler, a Trinity University economics professor who co-wrote the study along with Stefl.

The 15,648 IT jobs the study analyzed accounted for $882 million in total payroll. It did not include an estimated 10,000 San Antonio-based employees doing cyber security work for the government or the thousands of workers who perform IT jobs at companies whose primary business falls outside the realm of IT.

If those workers – which Butler estimated could be more than 15,000 – were counted, the IT sector “could start to be comparable with some of those industries in that range,” Butler said, referring to the bioscience and manufacturing sectors.

The study also did not include any potential impact from the 24th Air Force, which is slated to be fully operational by the end of this year. The cyber command is expected to create 400 positions, of which almost 200 already have been filled, and operate on an estimated $1 billion annual budget.

“I've heard lots of figures for impact, but the key is going to be, ‘What do they spend in San Antonio?'” Butler said. “They probably don't know yet. The whole thing is a new concept.