Page 27: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (December 2024)

GEORGE WHITTIER, CEO, FAIRBANKS MORSE DEFENSE “With the acquisition by Arcline and [my return] we had a change of perspective. We said ‘this actually isn’t an engine company, what we are is a critical supplier to the Navy.’

That put us on the path of making these acquisitions, building the company to where we are today.” – George Whittier, CEO, FMD on FMD’s M&A activity since 2020

Scan the QR code to watch the full, uncut podcast with FMD CEO

George Whittier on the

Maritime Matters: The

Marinelink Podcast operate above board, we’re going to be honest, be respectful. base. Can you summarize what you see today?

We’re going to admit our mistakes, we’re going to ? x prob- We’re in a dangerous world right now. Iran is shooting lems when we have problems, we’re just going to be that good missiles at Israel, the Houthis are disrupting trade, everyone partner for our customers, our suppliers, and then our own knows about Russia and Ukraine. And to me, the biggest chal- teammates. lenge of all would be: what happens if China invades Taiwan?

Then that feeds into teamwork. If you have integrity and There’s some talk of that in a 2027 timeline, and in global you have that sense of honor and respect, and you operate in a timelines that’s tomorrow, and we’re not ready for that as a sense of teamwork. A winning team is a team that works well Navy. I get concerned when I see the shipbuilding budget together, a losing team is a team where you’re pointing ? ngers for 2024, where the Navy [is decommissioning three times at each other and you’re placing blame all the time. We want more ships than they’re building, including only six or seven a team that – we’re not going to win everything – but we’re newbuilds for 2025 when initially the projection was 10]. At a going to win as a team and we’re going to lose as a team. And time when our Navy is shrinking, our industrial base is shrink- when we lose as a team, we’re going to ? gure out what we did ing, we have a Chinese Navy that’s gone from 300 ships to wrong and then we’re going to ? x it. Because we have integ- 350 ships or greater.

rity. The second value, even though I talk about it third, is re- The counter to that is always, ‘well, if you include all the ally the cornerstone for what we do here at Fairbanks Morse, allied nations we actually have a lot more ships, and the ships and that’s velocity. that we have are larger and more capable.’ I understand that,

I tell folks that we have to be decisive in what we do, and I really do, and I think we have the best Navy in the world,

I talk about velocity as speed with a direction. We will make bar none. I don’t think that the Chinese can compete with us at decisions when we have 80% of the information that we need, all, but it is really concerning just on a sheer quantity of ships and then we course correct, and we know that we’re going to and the fact that [a potential Taiwan] con? ict is right in their make some mistakes because we’re operating with 80%, but backyard, where for us its 6,000-8,000 miles away. because we have integrity and because we have teamwork, we [When you see] the hundreds of thousands, millions of man- can course correct, solve those problems and still get to the hours that we’re short to build the equipment that we need, it’s ? nish line, get to where we need to be before anyone else can a concern for everybody.

get there. We’ve literally won projects where I’ve had a com- So my passion on this is that we should be doing a lot more petitor call and tell me, and say, “You guys won that project of this work in the Midwest. The biggest constraint today is before I knew there was a project.” labor. [The big navy yards are storying to subcontract] but I’d like to see that much more broadly.

I know you are passionate about the U.S. Navy industrial A crazy idea I have is we ought to have a shipyard in St. www.marinelink.com 27

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