Stan Stanley may have been preaching to the choir, but it was an important message.

Stanley, the Base Realignment and Closure consultant to the NAS Whidbey Task Force, spoke Monday to a group of Whidbey Island business owners and others concerned about the possibility of base closure.

The luncheon was hosted by the Greater Oak Harbor Chamber of Commerce and Island County Economic Development Council.

The Pentagon is expected to issue the BRAC list in May, 2005.

Stanley said he doesn’t think Whidbey Island Naval Air Station would be on the list, but that doesn’t mean the community should let its guard down.

“The best way to make sure we’re not on the list is to let people know where and what we are,” he said.

Mac McDowell, Island County commissioner and member of the NAS Whidbey Task Force, said the community learned a valuable lesson in 1991, when without warning the base showed up on the closure list. From there it was an uphill, but successful, battle to get the vital community asset off the list. The base was not on the list in 1993 or 1995, and McDowell thinks the efforts of the community contributed to that success.

“We need to stay on top of it,” McDowell said. “It is much better to be proactive.”

McDowell pointed out that just showing up on the list can spark a huge economic downturn for a region, while everyone waits for the final pronouncement.

Stanley said he had just learned from sources in Washington, D.C., that the Department of Defense is likely to be looking more at base realignment than closure. In other words, bases will remain open, but will serve different functions. The DOD has not officially released any parameters on realignment versus closure, although it has released a set of base closure criteria. Military value of a base is at the top of the list, but quality of life issues also factor in.

Should NAS Whidbey be facing realignment rather than closure, Stanley said the community needs to be prepared for that as well.

“It’s important to show that the community can handle the increased capacity,” he said.

Stanley illustrated the advantages of the Whidbey base with a PowerPoint version of a booklet published for the task force by him and Clark Donnell of ProWhidbey.

Slide after slide extolled the virtues and advantages of Whidbey Naval Air Station. Among the pluses cited: the Whidbey base is the most requested duty station for Naval aviators; it has the only “clean” airspace in the nation in which the EA-6Bs can operate radio-jamming training; it has the expansion capacity to accommodate additional surge and long term mission requirements; and no other Naval air station has the capacity to handle Whidbey’s current operations, if the base were closed.

“Specifically, if you don’t have Whidbey, you must build it at another location,” Stanley told the group.

Stanley pointed out that while the BRAC list won’t come out for another year, bases are being asked to submit “data calls” now. As the community found in 1991, that information is not always accurate.

“It’s important for the Navy to get our information to compare to the data calls,” Stanley said.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield has said the military of the future will be faster, smaller and more lethal. What that means in the base realignment and closure process is an increased emphasis on what Stanley called a “come as you are” type of deployment.

“This is what is driving the downsizing,” he said.

Under the post-World War II Cold War warfare model, one battle group at a time was deployed, with others many months away from heading to sea.

Now they are looking at having two groups deployed, two more ready in 96 hours, two more ready in 30 days, and another two ready in 90 to 120 days. As Stanley pointed out, every one of those battle groups includes a Prowler squadron.

“The EA-6Bs are mission essential,” he said. “There is no strike force without them.”

With the Prowler replacement EA-18G expected by 2008, Stanley said Whidbey is the only base with the readiness capacity to accommodate them.

He also illustrated that 47 percent of all personal earnings in Island County come from civilian and military Department of Defense jobs.

“They is us,” he said.

Patty Cohen, Oak Harbor mayor, said Island County’s proactive approach to promoting the base has not gone unnoticed in Washington, D.C. or in our own state.

“We’re the model for other military communities,” she said.

McDowell agreed, saying the Pentagon refers other communities to Oak Harbor as an example of how to promote the military, and stay off the BRAC list.

You can reach News-Times reporter Marcie Miller at mmiller@whidbeynewstimes.

com or call 675-6611.