Page 32: of Marine Technology Magazine (November 2023)

SONAR TECHNOLOGIES DAWN MASSA STANCAVISH, MASSA ue to grow that process and have quality products throughout.

I know your business is driven by multiple mar- kets – defense, offshore energy and science –but let’s start on the defense business as it’s most A big part of that equation is technology, but an topical given the various geopolitical con? icts. equally big part is workforce. Everyone’s look- ing for quali? ed people. What is Massa doing to

Absolutely. The Navy has publicly announced an increase in solidify its workforce of the future?

our build of submarines, and the trajectory and goal is to make one Virginia- and two Columbia-class submarines a year. To- The Navy wants to build up the workforce, build up manufac- day has both similarities and differences from the WWII era. turing. The president wants to build up manufacturing across

The parallel is that prior to World War II, we had the Great the board, but speci? cally through the submarine industrial

Depression and we also had other con? icts in the world; the base to meet the challenge and the requirement to build the war started in Germany and in Asia before it reached America. one plus two. And Massa is a submarine supplier.

Our allies were asking for help, and we were sending supplies We have an interesting demographic. We’re located on the to help them. south shore of Massachusetts, and we have a community here

We were in a similar spot from the sense in that we had been where there are a lot of wealthy families, but there’s also fami- hurt economically by the depression; [most recently] we were lies that aren’t so wealthy. Kids look at going into college, hurt by COVID. Today you see con? ict in Ukraine, you see and see that the pricing has increased dramatically. So there con? ict in the Gaza Strip, as well as other places, and we’re are some kids that are technically inclined, that might have sending aid. It’s eerily similar to where we were, but in a com- had hopes of becoming an engineer, but realize [the cost and pletely different way. resulting debt may put it out of reach].

A key difference: America was very much a manufacturing [An option for a young person who] wants to do something nation in the late 1930s and early 1940s. We were the leader meaningful, to with their hands and their mind, to build and in manufacturing in many respects. Today, we’ve shipped a lot create new products, to build pieces for submarines, they need of our manufacturing overseas, and we’ve heard our president to understand that they could do that here.

talk about how we have to bring manufacturing back. I’m spreading that news everywhere; we’re hiring differ-

Even though we’re small, Massa feels that we’re an important ent types of jobs, everything from machining to assemblers ? xture in this effort because we’ve maintained our footing with to engineers. We have so many different types of technical our technology as a leader in what we do for the Navy. We’ve possibilities for people to come and have a career that’s also also maintained that in industry, but we’ve also maintained the contributing to our national security end goal, plus some cool ability to have control over our manufacturing process, contin- projects in the commercial and oceanographic side. 32 November/December 2023

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