One of the four base closure panelists who visited Maine this week will make a return call so he can see the Defense Finance and Accounting Service office in Limestone, which is on the Pentagon’s cutback list, Maine’s two U.S. senators announced Friday.

Retired Air Force Gen. Lloyd Newton plans to visit the Limestone facility, but no date for the visit has been set yet, Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins said.

Snowe and Collins said the Limestone DFAS office “stands head and shoulders above the rest, with low operating costs, a quality labor force, excellent service to customers, and the ability to provide a quality living environment for employees and their families.”

The center, one of more than a dozen DFAS offices targeted for closure across the country, was created as a nod to the devastating impact of the closing of the Loring Air Force Base in 1994. “We need to keep those jobs intact,” Gov. John Baldacci said before the visit was announced.

Even before the four Base Realignment and Closure commissioners visited the Brunswick Naval Air Station and Portsmouth Naval Shipyard this week, Baldacci sought to arrange a visit to the Limestone facility. More than 300 jobs would disappear if it closes.

Newton spoke by phone to a member of the local task force fighting for the Limestone facility.

“I want to thank General Newton for not only taking the time to visit Maine, but for being willing to learn more about the important and cost-effective work that they are doing in Limestone,” Baldacci said after the call.

Carl Flora from the Limestone task force told Newton that the facility has received high marks and he encouraged the panelists to visit Limestone.

Flora said no firm commitment to visit the facility was reached during the 10-minute phone call. The senators’ announcement came late Friday afternoon.

Newton and three other members of the nine-member BRAC visited the Brunswick base on Thursday and the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery near the N.H. border on Wednesday. The Pentagon proposed closing Portsmouth and sharply curtailing operations at Brunswick.

While the other facilities are much larger, the DFAS center is important to the economy in Aroostook County.