Cyber battle lab among grant projects

Eight state grants totaling $1.03 billion will be used by groups in Northwest Florida to protect and improve military assets, including $300,000 to develop a prototype cyber warfare battle laboratory at the Navy's Corry Station in Pensacola, Fla. The Pensacola Bay Area Chamber of Commerce will use a $100,000 defense reinvestment grant and $200,000 defense infrastructure grant to enhance Corry's Center for Information Dominance and help the chamber's efforts to retain and create jobs. Another group, TEAM Santa Rosa, will get two grants totaling $257,726, one to be used for land acquisition near Naval Air Station Whiting Field. A third group, the Economic Development Council of Okaloosa County, is getting two grants totaling $287,500 for projects related to Eglin Air Force Base, Hurlburt Field and Duke Fields, and the Bay County Board of County Commissioners and Bay Defense Alliance will get $93,519 and $87,500, respectively, for projects associated with the Naval Support Activity and Tyndall Air Force Base, Panama City. (Sources: multiple, including Pensacola News Journal, Pensacola Bay Area Chamber of Commerce, Office of the Governor, Florida Defense Alliance, 10/10/11) The Air Force's center for cyber training is at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Miss.