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Air Force Secretary Michael Donley will visit Hill Air Force Base on Monday, his second visit to the Utah installation.
The visit, at the invitation of Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, comes as the Air Force is trying to get congressional buy-in for its plan to slash billions from its budget and shrink its workforce of civilians, active duty, National Guard and Reserve airmen by thousands.
Sen. Mike Lee and 1st District Rep. Rob Bishop will also take part in the base tour, Bishop said this week. The base is Utah's biggest employer, with nearly 23,000 military and civilian workers.
Donley, who last visited HAFB three years ago, understands the Utah base's value to the Air Force, but "it's good to reinforce that," Bishop said.
The delegation particularly wants to show Donley the Falcon Hill National Aerospace Research Park, which is the largest of its kind in the country.
Falcon Hill is a commercial business park being developed on 550 acres of base property along Interstate 15, through what's called an enhanced use lease.
Through such leases, the Department of Defense allows commercial development on federal land. HAFB will get, in return, more than 1.4 million square feet of office buildings.
As defense dollars dry up, that makes HAFB even more valuable because it can take on new work without needing federal money for new construction, Hatch said.
"That (Falcon Hill) should stabilize us to a degree," the senator said Thursday.
Secretary Donley is expected to meet with airmen, base employees and community leaders to address impending changes at the Ogden Air Logistics Center, which is being renamed a "complex" and losing its two-star general this year.
The Utah congressional delegation was angered last fall when the Air Force announced a restructuring that would have stripped the center of its general and required oversight from Oklahoma for blue-collar workers and from Ohio for white-collar employees. The top officer at the Utah center would have been a colonel.
"That did not make any sense to me," Hatch said. "They've got to be able to make these decisions out here."
After negotiations with Utah's congressional delegation, Donley agreed to 22 changes in the restructuring plan, including that the complex will be headed by a one-star general with authority to make decisions in Utah, Bishop and Hatch said this week.
"What this means is we keep our integrated structure and we continue to get new workloads," Hatch said.
HAFB so far has escaped big job losses. It's expected to lose 159 civilian jobs and 62 military positions under the restructuring.
The Utah base remains the top choice of the Air Force, Hatch said, for basing its first three squadrons of the new fighting jet, the F-35A. The jet was in the news again this week because of development delays and soaring costs.
However, a draft environmental impact statement comparing the possible operational bases, including HAFB, is due out next month. "It ought to be all right if they don't try to play politics with it," Hatch said.
Donley will make no public appearances during his visit, HAFB spokesman Rich Essary said on Thursday.