Soon after learning the state's major military installations had survived a new round of base closures mostly intact, they were plotting to bring in new work from bases slated for shutdown.

Under the Pentagon's recommendations, released Friday morning, Utah would lose fewer than 200 jobs.

Members of the citizens' group Utah Defense Alliance say that puts the Beehive State in perfect position to gain employment overall. They have already pinpointed more than 4,000 jobs that may be brought to Utah and are hoping to bring more as the Pentagon repositions the playing field.

"We've identified all the jobs and we know exactly where they are at," said the group's president, Vickie McCall.

The closure list did include one Utah installation: Tooele's Deseret Chemical Depot. However, that operation, which employs about 1,500 people, already had been slated for closure by 2008 following the destruction of its stockpile of chemical munitions.

Overall, the Defense Department on Friday announced its intention to close more than 180 installations, though less than a fifth of those are considered "major bases" and only 14 were facilities employing more than 1,000 workers.

Many of the closures were Reserve complexes, recruiting centers and regional administrative offices employing less than 50 workers. Those missions are expected to be consolidated on larger bases, such as Hill Air Force Base, which currently employs more than 23,500 workers. Utah's Reserve center - Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City - is slated to lose 53 employees in the realignment.

Though the Pentagon's list is not the final word on base realignment - a nine-member commission has four months to review it - observers expect larger installations will immediately rush to pick up scores of yet-unassigned missions of smaller closing bases.

Within hours of the announcement, Utah Defense Alliance officials said they intended to submit a $5.6 million purchase order for machinery to make Utah's military installations more attractive to defense planners. The money comes from an appropriation by the state Legislature.

The alliance believes the machinery will help Hill win additional work - perhaps up to 700 jobs - relinquished in past base closure rounds.

Alliance Director Rick Mayfield said his group will wait some time, however, before scavenging for missions from bases most recently slated for closure.

"We don't want to make political enemies," he said. "The dust needs time to settle."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld estimated adherence to the list would result in a 5 percent to 11 percent reduction in excess capacity. The Pentagon's list proposes the closure of 33 of the 425 major bases in the country - about 8 percent.

That's substantially less than the 25 percent reduction he was proposing just months earlier.

Rumsfeld said in 2003 that he expected this round would be "the mother of all" base closures.

Many base communities were startled into action by such claims. In Oklahoma, for instance, voters agreed to purchase a $50 million bond to pay to move homes that were considered to be encroaching on an installation's flight path.

Utah Rep. Rob Bishop said the impetus for Rumsfeld's doomsday projections wasn't important to him.

"I don't know if 25 percent is a bait and switch," Bishop said shortly after learning of Utah's status on the list. "I don't care, I'm so happy."

Indeed, glee seemed to be the order of the day.

"It is a banner day for the state of Utah," Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. said. ''It could have been just the reverse. We could have been talking about the loss of tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars into our economy. Instead, we're talking about not only holding the status quo with some very, very important military assets, but indeed building upon those.''

State Rep. Stuart Adams, a Republican from Layton who represents the Hill area, credited the workforce at the base as the reason it avoided a major loss.

"We think we have the most educated, some of the hardest-working people with the greatest work ethic of any spot in the nation, probably any spot in the world," Adams said. "And if thanks were to be given, it's to those workers at Hill Air Force base."

Former U.S. Rep. Jim Hansen, now a member of the commission that will study the Pentagon proposal and can make alterations, said he also was pleased to see Utah escaping any major losses. But the former Hill advocate noted past military recommendations have been altered dramatically by the panel. He cautioned that the list released Friday wasn't in any way final.

"Go celebrate," Hansen said, "but the other side of the coin is, it will change. I will guarantee that. . . . Don't put too much stock in what you got today."

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Tribune reporter Thomas Burr contributed to this report.