Page 54: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (October 2000)

Ship Repair & Conversion

On The Waterfront With NNS' Director I

Newport News Shipbuilding has been exit NNS' mammoth facilities — on the recipient of several high-profile time, and on budget — is a story in cruise ship repair projects of late, itself. Clad in a hardhat and steel-tipped including the Millennium fix detailed on boots, the director of ship repair for the previous page. The person responsi- Newport News, Va.-based Newport ble for ensuring that the jobs enter and News Shipbuilding is hard at work,

Becky Stewart vative cruise vessel. She is Becky Stew- art — and she has been with the ship- yard for approximately 19 years.

In an industry where high-level posi- tions have traditionally been held by men, Stewart is not afraid to demon- strate her high level of expertise — both on the waterfront and in the office. She kicked off her career in the maritime industry at NNS — subsequent to earn- ing an M.B.A. from the College of

William & Mary. Stewart's first job with the yard was in its production engineer- ing department. While there, she gained a first-hand look of what actually occurred on the yard's "waterfront," as she was in the middle of the constant buzz of drydock activity. From there,

Stewart moved over to the corporate side of the shipyard, holding positions within Information Services and Corpo- rate Strategic Planning — positions that would provide her with a gamut of understanding as to what happens on both sides of the yard — from the water- front to the financial end.

Prior to her current position, which she has held for the past two years,

Stewart was the director of one of NNS' engineering departments, responsible for life-cycle engineering for various

Navy ships (NNS constructs and repairs both Navy and commercial vessels). At that time, she supervised about 400 employees both on the technical and engineering side with the maintenance of these vessels, such as ordering spare parts, and developing video and elec- tronic training.

Just what led Stewart back to the waterfront? Most likely her desire to turn back to her roots that she first plant- ed at the yard during her early days there. "I've always been interested in repair and construction from the water- front and I wanted to get back to that," she said. "Being directly involved with (Continued on page 59)

Of Ship Repair supervising a cruise ship that just arrived at the yard for new azipods, inspecting steel fabrication, or walking the wooden planks of the yard's largest drydock making sure all the equipment is strate- gically laid out for the arrival of an inno-

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