Newport News Shipbuilding will ultimately add more than 1,000 jobs to help build a new fleet of ballistic missile submarines for the Navy, the company president said Tuesday.
Shipyard President Matt Mulherin said those jobs would be in addition to a planned hiring increase in 2017. His comments came during a media briefing at the Sea-Air-Space Exposition in National Harbor, Md.
The downtown shipyard is Virginia’s largest industrial employer and an important part of the region’s economy. But the shipyard has shed about 1,200 jobs since last year and could cut another 300 later this year, company officials have said. They have blamed the cuts on a temporary drop in work, partly because of budget gridlock from a few years ago.
The company, a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries, now has about 20,000 employees. It was as high as 23,000 in recent years.
The Navy’s top priority is replacing its aging fleet of Ohio-class submarines, sometimes called boomers. The subs are armed with nuclear warheads and serve as the undersea leg of America’s nuclear deterrent, complementing long-range bombers and land-based missiles. The new fleet doesn’t yet have a name, so Navy leaders simply call it the Ohio Replacement Program, or ORP.
The Defense Department plans to order the first ORP boat in 2021. It will rely on the two yards that currently build the smaller, Virginia-class attack subs: Newport News and General Dynamics Electric Boat of Groton, Conn. The two yards each build major components of the subs, then alternate in assembling and delivering them to the Navy.
The Navy’s build strategy names Electric Boat as the lead contractor for ORP. It will deliver all 12 boats in the new fleet. Newport News will play a supporting role and do about 20 percent of the work. It will also pick up a greater share of the Virginia class work during the life of ORP, delivering most of the Virginia class subs instead of alternating with Electric Boat.
Mulherin said ORP will build on experience gained in the Virginia-class program, which is largely considered a success in terms of meeting budgets and schedules. For example, Newport News will build the bow, stern, sail and superstructure of the ORP boats. That is similar to its role in the Virginia submarine program.
Photos from Newport News Shipbuilding christening ceremonies, including the submarine John Warner, carrier Gerald R. Ford and the Virginia-class submarine Washington.
In a separate briefing Tuesday, officials from Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) said Electric Boat will submit a detailed design proposal for ORP on Friday. Negotiations will take place during the summer, and NAVSEA should award a detail design contract in the fall, said Capt. David Goggins.
The first ORP sub is expected to be on patrol by late 2030, Goggins said. Meanwhile, …
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