Page 19: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (June 2025)

NICK GUERTIN

As the present administration draws to a close, can you wrap up your accomplish- ments and outline the challenges that still exist?

Even after a year I felt like I was still new to the job. But

I was not new to this type of work, and was able to bring in that experience. I’m satis? ed with our accomplishments, but I admit that many challenges await my successor. I think I can say without reservation, and I left it better place than I found it when I ? rst started.

The previous position I held as director for Operational Test and Evaluation was the best job I had in my whole life up to that point. But being the ASN RDA— the acquisition execu- tive for the Navy and Marine Corps -- is just the most exciting thing I could ever possibly imagine doing.

How did you prioritize your goals and ob- jectives?

We were looking at the challenges the shipbuilding industry and the industrial base was facing with its current and future workforce. One obvious conclusion was that we need more skilled workers, especially the junior, ? rst- and second-year new hire employees. This has had an impact on the shipyards meeting cost, schedule and performance. Some of the ship building contracts we are in now haven’t been as pro? table as industry that thought they were going to be when they bid on them, in part because they found they need to pay their ship- yard workers more than they had expected to pay them--while

U.S. Navy photo costs of second-tier supplier parts and materials went up, too- -when they signed those contracts, especially before 2020. It’s “China has really thrown a whole not just the shipbuilding world. It’s also happening in the air- lot of money into industrial capacity craft and avionics and mission systems world as well. It’s a for ship building, and right now, manufacturing problem, and it’s a national problem.

more than 70% of the ships that are on order are to be built in Chinese

What are some of the changes you’ve im- plemented?

yards. We are a maritime nation

I established the Maritime Industrial Base (MIB) program – 90% of our goods and services of? ce. The Navy was initially targeting submarine production. move by sea. But we don’t build

But, because we realized a lot of what we were doing was also ships, except those required under bene? cial to the surface domain, and in fact, many aspects of the Jones Act. The Jones Act is not defense manufacturing, we’re looking at the entire Maritime

Industrial Base.

the problem. The problem is we

Last year we got a big chunk of money for improving the don’t compete on an international submarine industrial base — not just the two prime shipbuild- level, on the same playing