RIVERSIDE — After a tour of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Tuesday, one idea Gov.-elect John Kasich floated is the formation of an “enterprise zone” around the base to encourage development with targeted tax credits.

“We need to think about that,” Kasich said after visiting the base, the state’s largest single-site employer with 27,500 people, more than 10,000 of them civilians, and an annual payroll of $1.77 billion. “And I will work with the Dayton folks here.”

Kasich and his staff cautioned that a zone is not a concrete goal at this point. But Joe Zeis, vice president and chief strategist for the Dayton Development Coalition, called the idea “a great concept” to encourage formation of a “core cluster of businesses.”

Kasich also visited offices of research center Tec Edge in Riverside and was planning to visit Teradata, a data warehousing company based in Miami Twp.

“There’s so much to absorb, it’s almost overwhelming what the potential is,” said Kasich, who will be sworn in Jan. 10, 2011.

“I think you need to come and see for yourself what’s going on,” he added. “This will be the first of, I think, a great many visits here.”

At Tec Edge, Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) scientists gave Kasich brief introductions to their work.

After an explanation of work on nano-biological materials, Kasich asked: “Of all the things we talked about today, how many will result in jobs in the next year?”

“The biggest and most immediate bang is going to be around the aerospace and small unmanned (aerial) systems,” said Jim Leftwich, the coalition’s chief executive, who visited Tec Edge with Kasich.

One official cautioned the incoming governor that a sudden explosion of jobs is unlikely.

“It’s not going to be thousands of jobs in the next year,” said Maj. Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski, AFRL commander.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2390 or tgnau@DaytonDailyNews.com.