The efforts not only increase the base's value for national security, but will also help put it on solid footing before the next round of Base Realignment and Closure in 2005, Saxton said.

"Project-by-project, the many pieces of McGuire's future are coming into place," Saxton said. "These are all future-oriented projects, which I believe are the best way to keep McGuire as an indispensable asset to the Air Force."

The $19.2 million contract was awarded to Boeing's Long Beach, Calif. plant which has been preparing for production of McGuire's squadron. The contract, which was awarded out of the Aeronautical Systems Center at Wright- Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, funds the purchase of automatic test equipment for the C-17. Under the terms of the award, it must be in place by 2006. The contract is for McGuire and Altus Air Force Base, with the bulk of the work for McGuire. Saxton has sought to make sure this equipment would be in place at McGuire since fall 2001. Altus AFB in Oklahoma is an existing C-17 training base that already has maintenance equipment.

Many C-17-related projects are underway at McGuire. This fall, the DoD awarded a $20 million high-tech freight terminal and supply complex designed for rapid cargo shipping and receiving to a regional company. Additionally, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded  a $24 million bid to design and build a maintenance hanger for the massive Boeing Globemaster aircraft. Currently about $65 million in C-17-related construction is underway.

For the past two years, Saxton's seniority on the Armed Services Committee has led to him chairing the Military Construction Subcommittee from 2001-2002, where nearly all U.S. military construction projects must be authorized. Since he headed the subcommittee, New Jersey has received nearly $200 million for planned military projects. All seven military bases in the Garden State have each received millions of dollars in funding over the past two years.

"The federal dollars that come to McGuire and Fort Dix and other bases are a potent infusion into the regional economies," Saxton said. "This particular project is expected to be well underway when the Pentagon begins taking a hard look at all U.S. bases, including McGuire, in 2005."

In 2001, the Air Force selected McGuire to receive the next available squadron of the $200 million per-copy C-17 aircraft, set to arrive in December 2004.