Page 40: of Marine News Magazine (May 2014)

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versions,” Socha said. Founded in Lockport in 1946, the company is family owned and operated.

Eastern Is Surrounded By Military Bases

Kenneth Munroe said Eastern feels honored to be select- ed as one of three fi nalists. “At the same time, we believe we have an exceptional design and the facilities to build these vessels for the Coast Guard at our two shipyards in Pana- ma City,” he said. “We’ve teamed with STX Marine, our design group, and with Northrop Grumman--our prime subcontractor for supplying C4ISR and our integrator for the vessel.” Based in South Korea, STX Marine has offi ces in Houston and Vancouver, while Northrop Grumman is headquartered in Virginia.

Eastern is building 300-plus-foot offshore supply and construction vessels now and delivering one about every six weeks. “We’re located in Bay County, along with an Air

Force base, a Coast Guard base and a Navy base,” Munroe said. “If selected for Phase II detailed design and building a ship as well, we would put hundreds of people to work in construction, in addition to engineers. It would bring up to 2,000 jobs to northwest Florida.”

In February, Brian D’Isernia, president and CEO of East- ern Shipbuilding, said now that the Coast Guard has evaluat- ed proposals from eight U.S. companies, based on technical, management, past performance and price factors, affordabil- ity will be the main consideration in its OPC acquisitions.

With Eastern’s track record of building 110 vessels on time and on budget since 2002, and with Bay County’s tradition of supporting the military with its three bases, Eastern is the perfect place for building OPCs, D’Isernia said.

D’Isernia founded Eastern in 1976 and expanded it from a 15-employee shipyard to 1,600 people today, Munroe said. “We have a very strong record and really want to do the best job possible for the Coast Guard. We look forward to the Phase I process and moving into Phase II.” Munroe noted that in the 1980s Eastern made a major modifi cation on a 210-foot Coast Guard cutter based in Panama City.

Bath Wants To Expand Its Customer Base

Bath Iron Works – busy producing U.S. Navy destroyers – is partnered with Spanish shipbuilder Navantia and L-3

Communications on its OPC design team. Bath has one shipyard in Maine, where it employs about 5,400 people.

The company has worked with Navantia for 30 years. “Since the two shipyards that weren’t selected by USCG for the OPC’s preliminary design phase have fi led formal protests, it would be inappropriate for us to discuss our

OPC proposal at this time,” Jim DiMartini, Bath Iron

Works spokesman, said last month. “If those protests are resolved and efforts resume, the open competition between the three yards that were down-selected will continue.” But because competition will be intense, Bath will continue to refrain from discussing its OPC design and team.

In February, Bath Iron Works president Fred Harris said the company’s Coast Guard design award was a key develop- ment since the shipyard wants to expand its customer base and maintain its design and manufacturing workload. “We will continue our yard-wide actions to ensure we can build these Coast Guard ships affordably, safely and on or ahead of schedule,” he said. February’s “BIW News,” a monthly letter on the company’s website, said the frigate-sized OPC is aligned with Bath’s capabilities, experience and workload, and that OPC construction would fi t nicely into the com- pany’s schedule for later this decade. “This competition refl ects the state of the shipbuild- ing industry in our country as three shipyards go head to head to secure much-needed work in an extremely tight market,” Harris said in the February newsletter. “Without doubt, the winner will ultimately be determined by cost.”

SHIPBUILDING

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