About 80 civilian Navy employees from the Lowcountry took the day off work Tuesday and traveled more than 400 miles by bus to support a statewide push to keep their jobs from being relocated.

The rank-and-file engineers and other workers were joined at a hearing in Charlotte by a full complement of elected officials and community leaders, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, Sen. Jim DeMint, Gov. Mark Sanford, Rep. Jim Clyburn, Rep. Henry Brown, North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey and Charleston Mayor Joe Riley.

"It was an impressive showing," DeMint said.

One of the group's main missions was to persuade the federal base-closing commission to reject the Pentagon's recommendation to shutter the Naval Facilities Engineering Command's Southern Division office in North Charleston and move roughly 500 jobs from there to three other cities.

Summey told members of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission that the Pentagon's recommendation was based on an analysis that was "fundamentally flawed."

"As a community, we are prepared to counter the Navy's analysis and offer sound alternatives that will save millions of dollars to the taxpayer while enhancing mission performance," he said.

By breaking up NavFac and moving the bulk of the jobs to Jacksonville, Fla., the Navy stands to spend $57 million when it could be saving $49 million if the unit were left intact, said Bill Lewis, a former commanding officer at NavFac.

"In Charleston we say, 'That dog don't hunt,' " Lewis said.

The hearing at Central Piedmont Community College was an opportunity for the region to lobby against the Defense Department's military restructuring proposals, which were announced last month.

Graham said the South Carolina entourage "really had its act together" and made an unemotional, persuasive argument based on hard data.

The four commissioners who attended Tuesday's hearing did not make any decisions based on the testimony. That information will be considered later by the full nine-member panel, which must submit its final list to President Bush in September.

NELL REDMOND/AP South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, (left) talks with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., testify Tuesday before the Base Realignment and Closure Commission during a regional hearing in Charlotte.

Last month, the Pentagon took aim at two local military employers, recommending they be shut down: the Defense Finance and Accounting Service on the former Charleston Naval Base and the NavFac offices off Rivers Avenue.The two units combined employ more than 900 workers, almost all of them civilians. Area officials said they found no reason to contest the decision to close the accounting center, which has 368 employees.

But Lewis, a retired Navy captain, made a detailed financial argument for keeping NavFac in the Lowcountry. The division oversees more than $1 billion a year in military construction in 26 states. The Pentagon wants to spread its responsibilities to bases in Virginia, Florida and Illinois.NavFac was marked for closing partly because it operates from an off-base building that the military does not own. Lewis said the command could move almost rent-free into the Defense Finance & Accounting Service's offices after that operation is closed, an option the Pentagon never considered. He estimated the savings would total $20 million over 20 years.

Another alternative is for the Pentagon to take the Berkeley Charleston Dorchester Council of Governments up on its offer to build NavFac a new headquarters on the Charleston Naval Weapons Station, Lewis said. That would save the Navy about $38 million, he said.

Lewis also said that if the Pentagon's recommendation is approved, the government will have to shoulder unnecessary relocation costs and pay to train new employees because "it is probable" that more than half of the engineers and other workers will refuse to move if NavFac is uprooted. That loss of "intellectual capital" could cost $40 million, he said.

Riley said the proposal to break up the unit flies in the face of industry practices in the private sector. "Does the Navy or Department of Defense have some new ... management philosophy breakthrough that CEOs of America's largest engineering firms have not yet discovered?" he asked.