Hi everyone, it’s Kevin. Today is Wednesday, April 28th. Like every organization, EB is subject to a lot of complexity and a rapidly changing world that can impact our business in many ways including changes in demand for our products and services, as well as how our customer and the general public view us. On today’s podcast, I’m speaking with Karl Hasslinger, our Director of Strategic Planning, to talk about Business Planning and Washington Operations, the two departments for which he is responsible.
So Karl thanks for joining me today on the podcast. Please give our listeners a bit of background about you.
Thanks Kevin—it’s great to be with you this morning. I started at Electric Boat in 2002 as Strategic Analysis Manager after a career in submarines and defense strategy. When I retired, I wanted to work for a company where I could use my experience to hit the ground running, and I wanted to be part of a team that shared the submarine work ethic. I was happy to meet both of those objectives at Electric Boat. As a new employee I continued working with former Pentagon colleagues analyzing our defense needs, testing new concepts in war games, and providing feedback to EB to ensure our products remained relevant. In 2005 I became the Director of Washington Operations when I was asked to combine the company’s activities in the National Capitol Region including Strategic Analysis, Government Relations, Navy Programs, Ballistic Missile Defense and the GD Marine Systems Office, more commonly referred to as the WEO.
Thanks for that Karl. You’re a critical part of how we interact with Washington leadership in the Pentagon and the Washington Navy Yard and beyond. You are now the Director of Strategic Planning that includes Business Planning and Washington Operations. Let’s talk a little bit about what those combined organizations do.
Last year we combined Washington Operations with Business and Strategic Planning. Together, they work on five basic goals for the company. First is to set direction and priorities in the Electric Boat Strategic Plan that you approved in January. It captures our core values and addresses fundamental issues like “What Is Our Mission?” and “What Are Our Priorities?” It is important for our employees to understand our priorities because while everything seems important on a day-to-day basis, they need to know that we prioritize safety and quality over schedules.
Second, we try to get everyone on the same page. The Strategic Plan outlines what we intend to achieve over the next five years in terms of new programs like building Columbia and designing SSN(X), while we continue to deliver Virginia, add VPM and maintain USS Hartford.
Third, we try to simplify decision making by ensuring that the data and analysis we present—like workload curves, defense priorities and customer feedback—are all accurate. It’s important for our leaders to understand where our business is so they can make informed decisions going forward.
Fourth, we try to align the company for success. Kevin, you have done that in a large way with new leadership assignments and organizational alignments and by using off-site meetings to develop and track the completion of our highest priority goals.
Fifth, we communicate a coherent message about our company. We do that with our state and federal elected officials, with the Navy and our suppliers. We also work closely with Liz Power to push our messages to the public and our employees. It’s important for all of them to understand what’s going on at EB, but especially our employees, because keeping them informed helps them to stay engaged.
Yes, that engagement is important and everybody has a very specific and important role to play—all 17,000 of us. I think that while many of our employees may be familiar with the Strategic Planning Department here in Groton, they may not be as familiar with the Washington Operations team. Let’s talk about who makes up the group and their primary responsibilities.
Washington Operations is a small group of former Navy submariners who perform two basic functions: Strategic Analysis and Government Relations, what we now call Navy Programs. Both involve a lot of time in the Pentagon and Washington Navy Yard with uniformed Navy and civilian leaders, but also with defense think tanks and others we call influencers who interact a lot with the government.
Washington Operations also runs the Submarine Industrial Base Council that helps us communicate with our supplier base. There is only one Electric Boat, but we have many suppliers across nearly all 50 states who can lobby their elected officials on behalf of our submarine programs.
Finally, Washington Operations runs the WEO and is responsible for its operations and security. We support employees from Electric Boat, Bath Iron Works, GDIT and General Dynamics Mission Systems. In a typical year the WEO hosts over 900 conferences and classified war games with more than 12,000 attendees.
We talk about shipbuilding as a team sport; there’s no question it takes all of us. The same is true for Strategic Planning. How does your team coordinate with other parts of the business to make sure we’re ultimately successful?
As I noted earlier, we work very closely with Liz Power and her group to coordinate the messages we use for various functions like trade shows, articles and interviews. We also work closely with the General Dynamics Government Relations group and our Marine Group EVP to ensure that our messages and lobbying efforts are aligned. Business Planning is also closely aligned with our Finance and Manpower Planning groups to monitor staffing requirements and Contracts to ensure we understand their impact on our overall business. The Program Offices are another major internal customer, and we work closely with CONFORM and the Payloads group to help ensure the relevance of our ships.
Thanks Karl, I appreciate you taking the time to provide our listeners with an overview of the activities and functions in Business Planning and Washington Operations, the two teams comprising the Strategic Planning group. I want to encourage everyone listening, and all of our employees, if they haven’t done so already, please review the EB Strategic Plan. Karl and his team worked hard on that; it was newly revised earlier this year. We included it as a hardcopy insert in the second-half 2020 edition of EB News; it’s also available as a link. From my perspective, the Strategic Plan is critical for understanding our company’s priorities, and how we will achieve our vision to be the best and the U.S. Navy’s most-valued provider of nuclear submarines and undersea capabilities. It’s also important to understand how you fit in your particular role here at Electric Boat into the Strategic Plan.
Thanks everyone; we’ll talk again soon.
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