Portland (ME) Press-Herald
June 16, 2009
Navy Chief: BIW A Valuable Shipbuilder
Ray Mabus tours the Bath yard, which is facing layoffs but is in line for more work.
By Dieter Bradbury, Political Correspondent
BATH - Navy Secretary Ray Mabus visited Bath Iron Works amid a round of layoffs Monday and said he is committed to keeping the nation's industrial shipbuilding base intact.
Mabus, confirmed as President Obama's Navy secretary last month, toured the shipyard in the morning and later visited the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery.
He said he was impressed by the skill and dedication of BIW's work force, as well as the company's record of improving efficiencies and reducing production costs.
"The quality that is coming out of Bath is really outstanding," he said at a news conference immediately after the tour.
Mabus, a former governor of Mississippi and U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, was accompanied by U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and 1st District U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine. Pingree serves on the House Armed Services Committee, which reviews defense spending.
Mabus' BIW tour came about two weeks after the company said it would begin cutting an unspecified number of jobs because of a lag in its work building Navy destroyers. Sixty-seven layoffs were announced earlier this month, and an undetermined number of additional workers will be cut this summer and fall, the company said. BIW is owned by General Dynamics.
Snowe and Pingree said the layoffs were regrettable.
But Pingree expressed confidence that BIW would eventually call workers back to the yard.
"The good news is that there's a lot of work ahead, and this yard is on a firm footing," she said.
Snowe noted that she has requested a $190 million appropriation to fund additional repair work that would help BIW bridge its production gap. The request is pending before the Senate.
The shipyard began work last winter on the new Zumwalt class destroyer, the DDG-1000, and employment is expected to stabilize as that work progresses.
However, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in April that he plans to curtail DDG-1000 production after only three ships, all of which will be built at BIW.
Defense analysts say the new class of destroyer does not meet the Navy's strategic needs at a time when terrorism and smaller, localized conflicts are the chief national security threats.
BIW and its competitor, a shipyard owned by Northrop Grumman in Pascagoula, Miss., also build the Arleigh Burke (DDG-51), a smaller and older class of destroyer.
The Defense Department has said it will order more of those ships, but it's unclear how the Navy will divide future DDG-51 contracts between the two production yards.
Although he is from Mississippi, Mabus said his responsibility extends to the entire nation, and that his home state would not profit at BIW's expense.
The naval shipyard in Kittery overhauls submarines, including the Virginia class, which remains in the Defense Department's weapons budget.
Mabus, the nation's 75th Navy secretary, said he is committed to having enough ships built to maintain the Navy's overall shipbuilding infrastructure.
"If we lose that trained work force, it's really hard - if not impossible - to get it back," he said.
The new DDG-1000 being built at BIW is a "unique vessel, and I think the capabilities that it has will be welcomed in the fleet," Mabus said.
Visits to Maine shipyards by top Navy officials are a routine event after they are sworn in. Mabus' predecessor, Donald Winter, toured BIW and the Kittery yard early in 2006.
The previous Navy secretary, Gordon England, came to BIW in 2001.
