# Federal agencies not headquartered in the DC area **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 16, 2016, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-agencies-not-headquartered-in-the-dc-area/772137 "2016-11-16T07:52:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-agencies-not-headquartered-in-the-dc-area/772137/41 "2016-11-17T09:15:31Z")
For the DC area defination controversy, maybe one good test is whether the Russians are likely to nuke it directly? If so, it’s part of DC area. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Edward\_The\_Head](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce73a5/32.png) [@Edward\_The\_Head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edward_The_Head)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-agencies-not-headquartered-in-the-dc-area/772137/42 "2016-11-17T12:45:16Z")
> [@Terminus\_Est](#): > > Have you been to Gaithersburg? I have. It is far less urbanized than anything you’ll find along I-95 between Washington and Baltimore. It is well outside the Beltway unlike, say, Silver Spring which really is right next to DC. When was the last time you were in Gaithersburg? I live right across the street from NIST, as in I walk to the end of my street and I see the fencing for NIST. Gaithersburg runs in to Rockville, which runs in to Bethesda, which runs in to DC. It’s all city. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-agencies-not-headquartered-in-the-dc-area/772137/43 "2016-11-17T13:07:47Z")
> [@Edward\_The\_Head](#): > > When was the last time you were in Gaithersburg? I live right across the street from NIST, as in I walk to the end of my street and I see the fencing for NIST. Gaithersburg runs in to Rockville, which runs in to Bethesda, which runs in to DC. It’s all city. OK. It’s been some time since I was in Gaithersburg, so I’ll defer to your direct experience. Of course, I now live in [Metro Manila](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_Manila) (population ~13 million), so my concept of a city is something more akin to Trantor or Coruscant. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-agencies-not-headquartered-in-the-dc-area/772137/44 "2016-11-17T14:49:34Z")
> [@Terminus\_Est](#): > > OK. It’s been some time since I was in Gaithersburg, so I’ll defer to your direct experience. Of course, I now live in [Metro Manila](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_Manila) (population ~13 million), so my concept of a city is something more akin to Trantor or Coruscant. That area has changed dramatically in the last couple of decades. Growing up in the area in the 80s, Gaithersburg was the outer rim of The Sprawl in MoCo, but the line between Gaithersburg and Rockville was already pretty muddy. Germantown was basically just a crossroads with a couple of random housing developments and farmland. Now, where it was once clearly separate from Gaithersburg, Germantown has expanded immensely and they’ve essentially merged, and are threatening to swallow Clarksburg as well. ---
**Author:** ![Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tired_and_Cranky)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-agencies-not-headquartered-in-the-dc-area/772137/45 "2016-11-17T14:54:59Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > Anyway, for a likely larger agency, someone above mentioned that government publications are distributed from Pueblo CO. That would be the Federal Citizen Information Center. Unfortunately, the wikipage for that agency is a stub, so it doesn’t give the actual location of the HQ. Just because an operation center is in one location doesn’t mean the HQ is there. Quite frequently it’s in DC. I don’t know how big it is but the Federal Citizen Information Center is part of the Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies, which, in turn, is part of the General Services Administration. Both of those are headquartered in Washington, DC. > **[We're sorry — we couldn't find that page for you. - MyHealthfinder | health.gov](https://health.gov/myhealthfinder/findservices?code=HR2468)** > > We archived our Find Services section as part of planned improvements to MyHealthfinder. To find health information and resources, explore our Federal Health Information Centers and Clearinghouses. Or check out these sites to find health services and... > **[General Services Administration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Services_Administration)** > > The General Services Administration (GSA) is an independent agency of the United States government established in 1949 to help manage and support the basic functioning of federal agencies. GSA supplies products and communications for U.S. government offices, provides transportation and office space to federal employees, and develops government-wide cost-minimizing policies and other management tasks. > GSA employs about 12,000 federal workers. It has an annual operating budget of roughly $33 bi... ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-agencies-not-headquartered-in-the-dc-area/772137/46 "2016-11-17T15:05:49Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > Trust the SDMB to nitpick a question to death. > > … > Perhaps I was mistaken, but I thought each Federal Reserve Bank only regulated banks in its region. The FRB System is headquartered at a [beautiful](http://static.businessinsider.com/image/524b0cc0eab8eae36a40fda9/image.jpg) [building](https://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/aroundtheboard/gifjpg/eccles-building.jpg) in … Washington, D.C. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-agencies-not-headquartered-in-the-dc-area/772137/47 "2016-11-17T15:31:27Z")
> [@Terminus\_Est](#): > > Have you been to Gaithersburg? I have. It is far less urbanized than anything you’ll find along I-95 between Washington and Baltimore. It is well outside the Beltway unlike, say, Silver Spring which really is right next to DC. I have been, in fact. 🙂 Friends of mine used to live in Gaithersburg (15 years ago or so), and I visited them there several times (driving past NIST when we’d get off of I-270). And, on edit, I see that DCinDC has already answered the question better than I could. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tired_and_Cranky)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-agencies-not-headquartered-in-the-dc-area/772137/48 "2016-11-17T16:01:31Z")
I asked a friend who works at the GAO. He suggested the Denali Commission and the Appalachian Regional Commission. The Denali Commission is based in Anchorage but it works solely on Alaska issues so it might be too regional for your purposes. The Appalachian Regional Commission is both regionally focused and based in Washington so it fails on two counts. He also suggested this sourcebook as another way to generate ideas (PDF warning): [https://www.acus.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Sourcebook%202012%20FINAL\_May%202013.pdf](https://www.acus.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Sourcebook%202012%20FINAL_May%202013.pdf) Through that I found the Udall Foundation, which seems to have offices in both Arizona and Washington, DC, but it lists the Arizona office first. Morris Udall was an Arizona representative for 30 years. > **[Udall Foundation](https://www.udall.gov/AboutUs/AboutUs.aspx)** > > Providing educational opportunities related to the environment and natural resources, Native American health care, and Native American tribal policy Finally, as an amusing aside for people who argue whether Germantown is part of the DC metro area, my friend noted that one reason the Department of Energy decided to put its nuclear offices there was to keep them further away from a nuclear strike. So, at one time at least, the DOE didn’t really think of Germantown as being very close to DC. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-agencies-not-headquartered-in-the-dc-area/772137/49 "2016-11-17T16:26:15Z")
> [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](#): > > Finally, as an amusing aside for people who argue whether Germantown is part of the DC metro area, my friend noted that one reason the Department of Energy decided to put its nuclear offices there was to keep them further away from a nuclear strike. So, at one time at least, the DOE didn’t really think of Germantown as being very close to DC. They built the Naval Ordnance Lab in the mid-1940s in [White Oak, MD](https://www.google.com/maps/place/White+Oak,+MD/@39.0295549,-77.0338076,19032m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x89b7c59f75842a0b:0x7fdcc2c8cd0e169b!8m2!3d39.0398315!4d-76.9930319) (currently the site of the FDA HQ) because at the time it was still very rural and that was considered far enough away from the city and any dense residential areas that their experiments would not disturb anyone. They were still blowing stuff up there in the early 90s, long after the facility had been completely surrounded by residential neighborhoods. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-agencies-not-headquartered-in-the-dc-area/772137/50 "2016-11-17T16:49:45Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > The Air Force Research Laboratory is headquartered in Dayton, Ohio. Although it’s called a lab it’s really a series of them - one is in Orlando, for example. I think any DoD research lab falls afoul of the “no military units” restriction. Even if they’re not a numbered-echelon (like a squadron or a division) organization, they’re usually commanded by a flag officer, not directed by a civilian executive; largely staffed by military members; often sited within a military base (AFRL is within Wright-Patterson AFB, for your instance); and mostly under military discipline and law enforcement regimes. But of course, I’m just guessing about how seriously the “no military organization” restriction can be taken. The division between military and civilian has been badly blurred by 60 years of military-industrial complex. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-agencies-not-headquartered-in-the-dc-area/772137/51 "2016-11-17T17:03:44Z")
I’ve had two quasi-governmental agencies as clients, both of which operate under the oversight of the USDA; both of them are “check-off” agencies which exist to promote particular food products. One, the [Milk Processor Education Program](https://www.milkpep.org/user?destination=node/733) (MilkPEP, the “milk mustache” people), is located in DC. The other, [The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association](http://www.beefusa.org/) (“Beef – It’s What’s For Dinner”), is located in Centennial, Colorado (though they also have an office in DC). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-agencies-not-headquartered-in-the-dc-area/772137.md?page=2)