Hi everyone; it’s Kevin. It’s Thursday, November 19th. Today on the podcast I have the great pleasure of speaking with Electric Boat’s Senior Vice President of Programs and Planning, Kurt Hesch, who has been a great source of knowledge and a great help to me in my every-day work. Two weeks ago, the Navy announced that they exercised previously established options that award EB $9.5 billion worth of contracts for the construction of the first two ships of the Columbia class. Today Kurt is going to provide his perspective on where we stand across all of our programs, along with his insights about our customer’s needs.
Kurt, before we begin, congratulations on your 40-year tenure at EB and your new status as a member of the 2020 class of Distinguished Shipbuilders. That is quite an accomplishment in our business. For the benefit of some of our newer employees, let’s hear a little bit about your background here at EB.
Thank you, Kevin. I have seen quite a bit here; I’ve seen the pendulum swing from seven ships delivered in 1981, including the first Ohio-class that Columbia will replace. We also went six years without a delivery before we were able to get the lead ship Virginia done. But now we’re back to a growing business, and it’s great to see. But I will say this 40th year has been the strangest year yet.
You can say that again, wow. It goes in the record books. Kurt, you have a unique perspective, and I rely on that on a daily basis. Your knowledge of our programs is deep and wide, and you understand our customer very well. You also understand one heck of a lot of our processes across the shipyard just based on your tenure. Let’s start there—let’s talk a little bit about the customer. What is top of mind for the Navy, and how can we better support the fleet?
There’s been a lot of submarine news lately for many reasons. Obviously the Columbia award–the number-one program, more than a decade in the making, is the biggest one. The senior leadership of the Pentagon and Navy is also aligning on the need for more attack submarines, which bodes well for our future demand signal. The talk is now 70-80 subs which would require three per year. On the flip side, the customer is concerned that EB’s plate’s pretty full already, it’s only getting fuller. Their biggest measure is getting VCS (Virginia-class) ships to the fleet.
This is a good opportunity to think about and make sure people understand what’s actually happening in the Groton shipyard today. When you think about the waterfront, you can think of quite a few hulls that are stretching from the north end of the yard down to the south end of the yard. This is the most work we’ve had in about 30 years, wouldn’t you agree?
It definitely is, and frankly getting these ships to the fleet all comes through here in Groton Operations. Right now we have in:
- Graving Dock #1 and Graving Dock #2 two PSAs both doing VCS first-time work for Acoustic Superiority and a bow dome replacement. Those both deliver in the second quarter of next year. Both have high attention from the Navy admirals and the fleet.
- We also have on the North Wing Wall, Oregon, SSN 793, ready to get into her critical test and sea trials early next year.
- In Bay 5 of the 260 building we have the Rickover (SSN 795) driving to roll-out and launch in the second quarter of next year. That whole ship went pressure hull complete in September.
- Bay 3 has SSN 797; it has the reactor plant through the stern all together there. We’re pushing towards our reactor plant path which would allow 2B-5 to then end load. At that point, we’ll be waiting for a bow from Newport News that comes in mid-year next year. That is a very important ship for us.
- Bay 2 was made available earlier this year by relocating the tool crib, allowing great progress on SSN 799 RPM and 6/7 MIDS, which is the module that goes right with that. That set up our best nuclear path schedule performance in seven years. Our teamwork and preparedness, including use of the ALC’s (Active Learning Centers), have led to high first-time quality in the piping and structural welding paths.
- We are waiting for some other modules to arrive on that boat. We recently sent one of our hull butt teams to Newport News to join Section 8 to Section 9, that’s the back-end of the ship. We build Section 8 at Quonset; Newport News builds Section 9 down there. Due to some delays in Section 9, we actually sent Section 8 down there and a team to do that hull butt. They did a great job with great work and great quality demonstrated by that EB’s team performance.
We are spread out here in the yard and also spread out across our partner Newport News and within the vendor base. Let’s talk a little bit more about that. We’ve had a few examples this year where we’ve sent some of our experts to work with our suppliers and partners to help them overcome challenges. We had an opportunity to go to BAE in Louisville earlier this year to see what our team was doing on missile tubes to share their welding experience. That was one of the more rewarding trips I’ve been on in my career, to watch our young people and some of our more senior people work together to not only get the work done but also train the people from the business that they were in to help them get better. I think we’ve seen some great improvement there and it becomes a model for us going well into the future. Let’s talk a little bit more about that. What else are we doing and what is your perspective on that?
That’s a great explanation, Kevin. That’s very important to us. As we grow the submarine business, we need more suppliers as well as ourselves—that’s very important. This example at BAE was critical to getting VPM tubes out. We have an example that we just sent some people over to Babcock Marine in the UK to work on tubes for Columbia where we sent a team to help build a team. That’s going to be critical for us going forward to achieve the volume of work we need to. We also are now starting that up at W International, which is a startup firm that’s working steel work for us. So that’s all very important.
That W International is down in South Carolina, isn’t it?
Yes, it’s actually where EB had some facilities in the heyday of the 80’s and early 90’s.
I don’t want to forget that SSN 801 on the waterfront, also in Bay 2, is a key nuclear structure and major piping progressing well. Again, it demonstrates our objective of working every nuclear path job every day.
When you sum that all up, that is two PSAs and our remaining five Block IV deliveries all very active in Groton. It is the most reactor plant work on our waterfront in about 25 years. We will have challenges with the cadence of module arrivals, but that can’t distract from performing to our standards on safety, quality and frankly, the team sport of delivering nuclear submarines alongside our Navy crews.
Really well put. I had the opportunity to be at Corporate this week talking about our Operating Plan for the coming four years. One of the things I noted was that next year the Virginia program will deliver or re-deliver six submarines. Five of those submarines are planned on being here in Groton. We’ve got our work cut out for us.
While that gives us a good rundown on what’s happening today, let’s talk a little bit about the future. What might the Navy be planning on beyond Columbia and Virginia? I think that’s particularly important to our Engineering team. Based on what we know, there are a few more blocks of Virginia submarines coming to us, we think. Then, what are we doing in terms of the next generation attack submarine, SSN(X)?
We still believe there’s going to be two more blocks of Virginia beyond the Block V we have now. How much they change compared to what we’re building today with VPM is uncertain, but my expectation is quite a bit of change for some other missions and also to learn for the next SSN platform, kind of like the back end of the 688-class. We did some changes to that that were to help inform what turned out to be the Seawolf class.
The SSN(X) platform is really still a clean sheet of paper. There have been different reviews and studies of it, and our Conform group is doing work on it. My hope is that it lets a generation of EB employees really generate platforms that surpass our adversary’s aspirations to meet the national security needs. We’ve been doing a lot of affordability versions of submarines—we need to go push the capability further.
When I talk to our young people, I often ask them where else would you rather be than right here right now? We’ve got a great product that’s in high demand for both Virginia and Columbia and it’s a highly adaptable platform. We’re doing some things with that even today in the shipyard on the 790 boat, for example, and what we’ll be doing with seabed warfare on the Virginia platform going forward. It is a tremendous time to be a submarine shipbuilder.
Thanks Kurt, I think a great opportunity for us to tie up and convey to folks just what it is we’ve got going on across all of our programs and how that cadence is only going to be stronger as we continue to move forward with full construction on Columbia and two Virginias per year, potentially three Virginias per year. Also, for continued insights from Kurt, I encourage you to check out his periodic blog posts on Homeport. It’s always an upbeat and informative window into both EB’s business and family life. Kurt; thanks for sharing that with us.
So, thanks, Kurt, for being here today with me, and thanks to all of you for listening. We’ll talk again soon.
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