Page 28: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (December 2024)

INTERVIEW

Louis that’s making modules for all of the other shipyards, manage their ? nancials. Because they can’t just say, “Oh, all and you stick them on a barge and you sail them down the this stuff we’re doing today, we’re just going to outsource it.”

Mississippi River. There’s a lot of labor in the Heartland, I’m really passionate about this topic, and [to be clear] I’m and if you drive through the middle of the country, you see not trying to build ships just for the sake of building ships. I’m these rust belt towns where there’s labor available. There are very concerned about the state of the world today. [Almost no tech schools, there’s trade schools, we can teach people how one today] thinks of China right as a friendly country. I’ve to weld. And then the shipyards that exist today really then been there about 20 times in my life, but I wouldn’t go today, should be transformed into assembly yards. it’s a very adversarial relationship there. It’d be great if we

We don’t do that, and I think the main reason is because we could try to simmer tensions a bit, but the way to do that is don’t have enough demand [building six ships per year]. ‘peace through strength.’ [The big Navy shipyards have] plenty of labor to do the work that they need to do today, but what’s it going to look Perhaps a bit early, but when you think about the FMD like if we say “Hey, we have to build 25 to 30 ships a year.” legacy that you pass on, what would you like it to be?

[To do that we have] to really transform the way that we do I think there’s two things, Greg. If we go back in our [150- business today. And in order to do that, we’re going to need year] history, we made windmills, we made scales, we made signi? cantly more labor, we’re going to need more money pumps, motors and engines; a huge variety of products. By from Congress. So, the Navy’s going to have to say, “Hey, the 1960s-70s, the company was really only making engines. instead of a $35 billion shipbuilding budget, it needs to be $40 I think about the legacy that I would like to be able to leave to $45 billion.” is one, there’s a clear focus on the customer that we have, the

The Navy is our front line of defense; it’s freedom of the United States Navy and the United States Coast Guard, this seas for everything that we want to do as a country. That has legacy of defense, enabling freedom of the seas, how impor- the follow on effect to the supply chain, the industrial base tant that is. that then has to grow and be able to support that. And there’s And second is going back to the original mission of Fair- tons of companies out there like, Fairbanks Morse, that are re- banks Morse. We’re much more than just an engine company. ally waiting for that leadership. Now what we’re seeing is that We now have a motor company, we have a valve company, we there’s a lot of grassroots efforts [such as] a year ago I helped have an elevator company, we have all of this other capability launch the Wisconsin Defense and Industry Coalition. that we’ve gone back to be able to add, to say, just almost like

But none of that’s really going to be successful if we don’t the company that existed more than 100 years ago. And so, it’s start saying, ‘Contracts have to start coming out of the big a little bit of back to our original roots, and I think that whoev- yards, out of the big primes into the industrial base.’ er gets this job after me, whenever that may be, hopefully they

And in order for that to happen, the big primes, the big ship- can continue to grow and expand on that in a similar manner yards, they have to have additional contracts so that they can to what we’ve been able to do for the last couple of years.

FMD has a rich history and a promising future serving the needs of the

US Navy and

Coast Guard.

All images courtesy Fairbanks Morse Defense

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