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48MNOctober 2011for our clients within the New Orleans market, is very important. We?re not just looking for more business; we want to be the trusted partner in a working relationship. As a completely independent shop, apart from corporate ties and/or shipyard ownership, we can truly offer total customer focus.?Midboe sums up the Gibbs & Cox philosophy by say- ing, ?This isn?t something new for us. We always ? in all places ? look for long term relationships with our cus- tomers. Part of that is building that trust and confidence. The government services is slightly different in how you build those relationships, but that said, we do have quite a history in working with industry teams, shipyards ? internationally and domestically ? and our goal is tomaintain our customers confidence and continue to dohigh quality work for these people.? TAILORINGTHE WORKTOTHE CUSTOMER ?SNEEDSThe pressing need for shipyards ? especially domestic U.S. and midsized yards ? to be as lean and competitive as possible is not a new concept. Bringing in more subcon- tractors to perform technical tasks and work on larger more complex projects certainly is. As such, the interac- tion between the naval architect and the shipyard has changed. That reality is not lost Masor, who explains, ?Shipyards are seeing a broad base of work, sometimes on a short term basis. So, the need to augment in-house staff with outside technical help will always be there. It makes a whole lot of sense for them in terms of being lean andcompetitive. There is a real cost benefit to using frontend design and engineering tools, 3D CAD product models. And this extends to not only new construction or one-off jobs, but new construction, as well.? There is perhaps no better example of the firm?s capabil- ities than their considerable role in the U.S. Navy?s groundbreaking LCS program. ?We are fortunate to have the breadth of capability that allows us to carry a design through requirements analysis, detail design and on to construction and then on to lifecycle support, depending on the needs of the client, said Eric Midboe. He added, ?On the LCS program, we are the design agents on that program, we did all the HM&E work, all the engineering analysis, all the CAD design. We also have people in the shipyard who provide that liaison and interface for pro- duction. We?re quite comfortable in that role. So, when we are in the Gulf Coast market, we can off that full breadth of service. In other words, we?re flexible.? BRIDGINGTHE GAPGibbs & Cox clearly has deep roots in the military design and build markets, but also performs its fair share of commercial work. The experience in one sector helps in dong work in the other, especially given the recent trend to marry military and government vessels to commercial regulatory standards. The military work which helped Gibbs & Cox build and maintain its technical expertise is, in the end, directly applicable to the commercial sectors. Masor adds, ?We can build and maintain capability in most industry CAD platforms and we have over six years of ShipConstructor design integration and construction support. We?ve developed and implemented a compre- hensive set of processes for modeling, drawing and extrac- ?We are extremely proud to have been selected to support BAE on this dredge project. This is a key opportunity for our Gulf Coast Operations to develop the designof a complex commercial vessel for a major shipbuilder in the Gulf.?Rick Biben, Gibbs & Cox Chief Executive MN#10 (32-49):MN 2011 Layouts 10/5/2011 10:42 AM Page 48