Page 41: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (October 2019)

HISTORY DESIGN EVOLUTION

Looking Back,

Forging Ahead

Hindsight, they say is 20/20, and in this regard renowned design house Gibbs & Cox has nine decades in the rearview mirror on which to lean. We recently caught up with Chris Deegan, President and CEO of Gibbs & Cox, celebrating its 90th anniversary in 2019, to discuss the organization’s rich history and promising future.

By Greg Trauthwein

When you took the top spot at Gibbs & Cox in combatants for 44 nations. In 2015 we acquired 2016, what were your goals for the organization? Donald L. Blount & Associates (DLBA) bringing

As a company that designs everything from yachts us an innovation center in the commercial, work- to work boats to destroyers, I wanted to reassert boat and recreational markets. Domestically, we

G&C as the global leader in the naval architecture augment government program of? ce and engineer- and marine engineering industry. Our Board of Di- ing teams in the US Navy, Missile Defense Agency rectors challenged us with growth in a ? at market, and USCG. Our role as a shipyard Design Agent and we have exceeded the target each year, needing spans many shipyards needing surge engineering new benchmarks along the way. Our and design services. Internationally, we support success is honestly easy to understand: shipyards in Halifax and Vancouver; and in 2017

The iconic and much provide a superior product to our cus- we opened our Canberra, Australia of? ce to align beloved SS United States tomers, and treat our people well. I us with the Australian naval expansion program. is a signature design project want every person in the company to We remain aligned with customers via expertise in from Gibbs & Cox.

feel valued and recognized as an im- important and emerging markets such as polar ice portant contributor to our success. If breakers, autonomous surface programs, and regu-

Source: Gibbs & Cox we take care of the people, the people latory changes in ballast water treatment and Tier 4 take care of the customer. emissions.

As one of the few ISO 9000 certi? ed naval archi-

Please give a “By the Numbers” overview of tecture and marine engineering ? rms, we welcome

Gibbs & Cox today. annual site audits of our processes and consistently

This year we celebrate our 90th year of incor- record excellent results. We have a robust quality poration, and less than one tenth of one percent assurance system unmatched in our sector of the in- of companies reach 90! At 400 people and seven dustry, supported by a library of management and domestic locations, G&C today is the largest in- technical guidelines built from lessons learned of dependent, privately held ship design ? rm in the previous classes which we tailor to each project world. Ships are all we do. Nearly 7,000 vessels based on customer preference. In the past three have sailed to our designs, including 30 classes of years we have recorded our highest Customer Sat- www.marinelink.com 41

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