MILITARY BASE CLOSINGS COULD LOOM.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

LANCASTER- California's defense industry will see better times ahead, but the state still needs to prepare for more closures of military bases, business and civic leaders were told Friday at a conference in Lancaster.

Speakers at the annual Antelope Valley Board of Trade Business Outlook Conference sounded a more optimistic note for the defense and aerospace industry after a decade of cuts. One source of optimism is statements from the Bush administration that defense will be a higher priority than it was during the Clinton administration.

``We are cautiously optimistic,'' said Rick Baker, a Lockheed Martin vice president and its Palmdale site general manager. ``We're all expecting a little bit of an increase in the defense budget.''

The Bush administration has indicated a desire to boost spending for research and development by $20 billion in 2002 and 2006, Baker said.

That could be good news for the Antelope Valley, where the number of defense and aerospace jobs dropped from more than 24,000 positions in 1990 to 20,500 by 2000.

Baker said he expects there will be more jobs created between 2005 and 2010 as the result of space vehicle construction, military aircraft production and aircraft modification.

``The bottom line is, I see growth in the aerospace industry,'' Baker said.

William Jefferds, the state's director of the military base retention, told the audience of about 500 that there are signs in Washington, D.C., that another call for closing more military bases is coming - and no one should assume any base will be safe from closure.

In looking at bases that have survived previous base closure rounds, common themes emerged, he said. Bases that have multimilitary service functions, have strong links to universities and have strong community and regional support are the ones that fare the best.

``One of my missions is to link universities with every base in California,'' Jefferds said.

California has been hurt in previous base closure rounds. In 1990, the state had 90 military bases and 908,000 Defense Department-related jobs.

By 1997, the state had lost 29 military bases and 600,000 jobs.

Jon McQuiston, a Kern County supervisor whose district includes Ridgecrest and the China Lake Naval Weapons Center, also focused on defense in his speech.

Both McQuiston and Jefferds are involved in the Southwest Defense Alliance, a group that is promoting the idea of having the Defense Department focus its testing and training missions in the U.S. Southwest.

The group includes government entities and private businesses and concerned residents from Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah.

One of the alliance's projects this year will be to try to get Congress to approve legislation protecting the military from lawsuits over noise complaints from low-level flights over national parks and monuments. Environmental groups are challenging the Pentagon in court on that issue.

The energy crisis was also on the minds of speakers. The $10 billion legislation approved Thursday was described by a couple of speakers as a temporary Band-Aid to allow the state time to find long-term solutions.

State Sen. W.J. ``Pete'' Knight, R-Palmdale, suggested nuclear power as a possible solution. Knight pointed to the safe use of nuclear reactors on U.S. Navy aircraft carriers and submarines as examples of that power source's potential.

``I want the Antelope Valley to think about that and promote that,'' Knight said. ``We should take the lead and be the nuclear Antelope Valley.''

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Photo: (color -- ran in AV edition only) BAKER