Propelling forward

A massive building is rising on the northernmost point of Newport News Shipbuilding on the James River, physical evidence of the shipyard’s ambitious plan to build the Navy’s next generation of Virginia-class submarines as well as components for a dozen Columbia-class boats.

Not as visible, but just as important as the new Multi-Class Submarine Production Facility, is the regional effort to ensure that the shipbuilder, the state’s largest industrial employer and a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries, has the manpower it needs to meet the Navy’s aggressive timeline to build two Virginia-class boats annually, as well as manufacture six modular components for every Columbia-class submarine.

It’s a daunting task, given delays that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, when no Virginia-class submarines were delivered to the Navy. Record low unemployment across the state has contributed to the challenge to staff production lines.

“We’re laser-focused,” says Xavier Beale, Newport News Shipbuilding’s vice president of human resources. “We’re committed to delivering on that backlog [of work] to our customers.”

With Newport News Shipbuilding responsible for building two submarines in the current block of the Virginia class and up to eight of the next iteration, while also constructing components for the Columbia class, as well as ongoing construction of two Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers and supporting refurbishment of the carrier USS John C. Stennis, the company has ramped up recruitment and training efforts. It’s working with the Navy, the Hampton Roads Workforce Council, local high schools and community and state colleges to grow its workforce.

Newport News Shipbuilding plans to expand its workforce to 28,000 — up from 25,000 — during the next decade, but with a rash of retirements expected in coming years, as well as normal attrition, the shipyard believes it must hire about 21,000 workers in the next decade, shipyard spokesperson Todd Corillo says. That will include 19,000 skilled trades workers like welders, pipe fitters, electricians and machinists, plus a few thousand professionals, such as program managers, engineers, recruiters and human resources experts.

The goal is to train a new generation of shipyard workers, taking a “holistic” approach to ensure that the company doesn’t remove workers from one project to meet the needs of another, Beale says.

Pandemic delays

Shipbuilding and repair generated an estimated $6.4 billion economic impact in Hampton Roads in 2022, plus $4.3 billion in employee earnings and benefits, according to the Virginia Ship Repair Association, which represents more than 300 area businesses.

With the region’s unemployment rate at 3.1% and other planned regional projects underway, including Dominion Energy’s $9.8 billion Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, the competition for recruiting and hiring workers is formidable.

Newport News Shipbuilding and General Dynamics’ Connecticut-based Electric Boat have a construction-sharing agreement to build much of the Virginia class and have alternated construction of the submarines. As of June 2022, the two shipyards have delivered 21 of the boats to the Navy, with its next submarine, the USS Hyman G. Rickover, expected to be commissioned Oct. 14. That’s fewer than expected, with the pandemic and related workforce and supply chain issues delaying Newport News Shipbuilding’s construction and delivery of the future USS New Jersey and slowing the average delivery schedule to
1.2 boats annually during the past five years.

In June, the Government Accountability Office noted that the builders would be hard-pressed to meet the two-boat-a-year timeline, given a 25% staffing shortage in September 2022 and a new design for the next-generation Block V boats that could prolong construction time by more than two years.

But HII officials said in February that its current Virginia-class and Columbia-class production lines were fully staffed, with a plan to deliver seven of 10 Block IV boats before moving on to the new version, Block V, which will be 83 feet longer than its predecessor and more advanced.

To meet demand, Newport News Shipbuilding fast-tracked construction of its Multi-Class Submarine Production Facility, breaking ground in February, with expected completion in 2024. Two more submarine construction support facilities will be built nearby, with completion expected in 2025. The facilities are part of a nine-year, $1.9 billion infrastructure investment at the shipyard that will improve working conditions for those constructing submarine components.

“These covered facilities improve the work environment for our employees and also help us with construction as far as the technologies that we’re using within them,” Beale says.

‘Great careers’

With $11 million in grants from the Biden administration’s American Rescue Plan Act, along with $2.5 million in state grants, the Hampton Roads Workforce Council is spearheading a regional effort to hire recruiters to attract talent and establish skilled-trades training programs to increase the shipbuilding workforce, says Shawn Avery, the organization’s president and CEO. Among the programs set for development or expansion is Tidewater Community College’s skilled training program, which will grow to increase its class size and offerings, and Paul D. Camp Community College, which plans to build a Workforce Trades and Innovation Center in Suffolk to house the school’s maritime and skilled-trades training programs.

In May, 20 graduates from a welding program at Hampton’s New Horizons Regional Education Center, a public vocational and tech high school with nine locations throughout the state, accepted full-time jobs at Newport News Shipbuilding and another dozen signed on to attend The Apprentice School, the company’s vocational school.

The Workforce Council has helped identify specific needs for specialized tradespeople over the next five years and is working with local community colleges as well as the New Horizons program to ensure that training spots are available, Avery says.

Recruiters from the Workforce Council and the shipyard also are fanning out to under-resourced and underserved communities to talk about job opportunities at the shipyard. Beale returned to his high school in Surry County to talk with students and parents about the advantages of working for Newport News Shipbuilding, including hands-on training, better-than-average starting wages, on-site health care and signing and relocation bonuses.

“We talk about building ships here, but I really want to focus on the fact that we build more than great ships,” Beale says. “We build great careers. We build great citizens of our community here.”