The Dayton Development Coalition has hired a retired four-star Air Force general and other consultants in an effort to protect jobs at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in the event of another round of military base closures.

Officials said the early start in the process is important to keep and grow jobs at the sprawling base, which has a $4.7 billion economic impact with more than 27,000 civilian, contractor and military employees.

“You can’t start early enough for the base closure process,” said Michael Gessel, the Dayton Development Coalition’s vice president of federal government programs. “The sooner you get involved the sooner you can attempt to influence the chain of decision-making.”

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said another round of base closures are inevitable as defense budget cuts take hold, although the Defense Department withdrew a request for a round next year citing economic conditions.

In August, U.S. Rep. John R. Carter, a Texas Republican and vice chairman of the military construction subcommittee, told the Dayton Daily News he expected the base closure and realignment process could start in 2014 or later.

The drive to protect jobs and missions will extend to Springfield Air National Guard Base and an assessment of federal military-related installations throughout the state, officials said.

The Coalition has hired retired Gen. Lester Lyles, a former Air Force vice chief of staff and past commander of the Air Force Materiel Command; and the Beavercreek-based consulting firms of The Greentree Group, Dayton Aerospace Inc. and CBD Advisors, which has former Republican U.S. Rep. David L. Hobson and retired Maj. Gen. Gregory L. Wayt, former adjutant general of the Ohio National Guard, on its consultants list.

“We’re taking nothing for granted and we’re going to put a plan in place and we’re going to execute our plan to do what’s best for the Air Force and what’s best for Wright-Patterson Air Force Base,” said Jeff Hoagland, Coalition executive director.

In the last BRAC round in 2005, Wright-Patterson gained 1,200 jobs and more than $350 million in new construction, the most since World War II. Among the windfall: The Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, which relocated from Brooks-City Base, Texas, and more Air Force Research Lab sensors work from facilities in New York state, Arizona, Massachusetts and Florida.

In Springfield, the Ohio Air National Guard base lost its F-16 fighter jet and pilot training missions, but gained a support mission for MQ-1 Predator unmanned aircraft, preserving what political leaders said was 900 jobs.

Consultants will assess what missions could be at risk and ways they can be less vulnerable, among other priorities.

A statewide review will examine military-related facilities in cities across Ohio, from the Joint Systems Manufacturing Center, which produces tanks in Lima, to the Defense Finance and Accounting Service in Columbus, to seven air bases, among other places, officials said.

“We will take some of the experience we learned in this community and try to share that with other parts of the state,” said Barbara Schenck, CBD Advisors chief executive officer. “We’ve had some wins and we’ve had some losses and we want to make sure we’re doing everything we can to get more wins. … It’s all about jobs.”

The Coalition will pay the groups on an as-needed basis, but did not disclose financial terms of the deals nor the contract payment to Lyles, who will handle tasks beyond BRAC-related issues, said Maurice “Mo” McDonald, vice president of military affairs.

Under scrutiny

Historically, in past base realignment and closure rounds, Wright-Patterson missions that have been under scrutiny for consolidation or reduction have included the post-graduate Air Force Institute of Technology, Air Force Materiel Command, the Wright-Patterson Medical Center and parts of the Air Force Research Laboratory, Gessel said.

He said it’s impossible to determine what might be at risk.

“We will start off with the assumption that all missions are vulnerable,” he said. ”Just because historical trends favor Wright-Patterson, we won’t make that assumption.”

Loren B. Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va., said while it’s “pure speculation” what jobs or missions could be lost at Wright-Patterson, he sees a likely scenario of more jobs moved to Miami Valley base.

“Here’s the bottom line,” he said. “Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is the nerve center for Air Force weapons purchases and technology development. It would be too expensive to move it, so the logical thing is to move other activities to the base.

“When there’s dozens of different tenants at a facility, there’s always something that might go away, but Wright-Patterson is better positioned than any other base in the Air Force to gain rather than lose in a BRAC round,” he said. “If I was hiring consultants today, I would tell them how to bring more things to the base because the base itself is not in danger. … It’s really too big to fail, if you pardon the expression. It’s too big to break up because there’s no financial logic” to relocating facilities.

Potential areas the base might gain are cyber and computer networks, space systems and human performance-related missions, he said.

Wright-Patterson, which indirectly supports 35,800 jobs off-base with a payroll estimated at $1.5 billion, has an advantage over electronic network operations at Hanscom Air Force Base near Boston, Mass., and Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles Air Force Base in southern California, for example, because the cost of living in Ohio is much lower, he said.