Rob Varela / Star staff Sean Foley, left, listens as Janet Harousch, both with the Specialty Center Acquisitions Naval Facilities Engineering Command, answers questions Friday at a session on Doing Business with the Navy in Camarillo.

Rob Varela / Star staff Tom Winans of NAVSEA, left, chats with Clyde Doheney of Frazier Aviation and Robert Bradshaw of BecTech at a Camarillo expo Friday.

These days you don't often hear "we're hiring," but that's the message people got Friday at the Navy Business & Community Expo at the Ventura County Office of Education in Camarillo.

A few hundred people attended the event, which showcased some of the work conducted at Naval Base Ventura County. While the Navy used the expo to march out a new study that shows how the base pumps $1.67 billion a year into the region's economy and directly or indirectly employs 19,000 people, it also offered a primer of sorts for those looking to land work with the base.

While some of the county's top employers are laying off workers, the Navy is looking to hire people.

"The average age of our engineering staff is about 50," said Capt. Dave Fleisch, the base's chief staff officer.

Many of those highly paid professionals have put in 18 to 20 years and are preparing to retire, Fleisch said.

"Even if we only have to hire a third of those positions, that's 300 jobs," he said. "I don't know any place else in this area that's looking for 300 engineers."

And for every 100 people the base hires there are another 87 jobs created within the county as a whole, said Fleisch.

The base is seeking satellite operators and planning to hire a dozen firefighters.

At Friday's expo, a range of curious local business owners were looking to see if there were projects they could bid on. At one table, base officials had a two-page list of contracts being worked on over the next five years, including weapons testing, surveying and corporate management services.

Part of the reason the county's Workforce Investment Board and Navy did the economic impact study was to highlight opportunities for local businesses, said Steve Kinney, president of the Economic Development Corp. of Oxnard and vice chairman of the Workforce Investment Board.

The board, made up of members appointed by the county's Board of Supervisors, decides how $5 million in annual federal money earmarked for work force training is spent.

In some ways, Friday's expo was not just a coming out party for the base but also the start of a dialogue, said Renee Trevino, executive director of the Navy's Region Southwest, which oversees the local base and 10 others in California, Nevada and Arizona.

"Here's a challenge to you," Trevino told the crowd Friday. "What new technologies do you have that we could use? And what can you do to help us improve what we do? Tell us what you can do to help us help our country."