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Home : Media : News
NEWS | Feb. 14, 2020

Secretary Geurts visits Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard with an eye on the future

By Cameron Salony, Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, Public Affairs Officer

Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, HAWAII -- James F. Geurts, assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development & acquisition, visited Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility (PHNSY & IMF) on Feb. 13 to see firsthand the locations where the Navy is focused on providing the shipyard’s 21st Century workforce with 21st Century facilities to meet the critical maintenance demands of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

Through the Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program (SIOP), the Navy plans to invest $21 billion in the nation’s four public shipyards over the next 20 years. PHNSY & IMF will be the first shipyard to undergo major infrastructure upgrades through the program.

“The Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Plan is recapitalizing these shipyards, putting in new facilities, improving efficiency, improving the quality of life for the shipyard workers so they can continue to get our ships in and out on time,” said Secretary Geurts.

SIOP will recapitalize PHNSY & IMF’s infrastructure to conduct critical dry dock upgrades to support modern ship classes, restore needed shipyard facilities and optimize their location, and replace aging and deteriorating capital equipment.

“The Navy continues to invest heavily in our naval shipyard workforce and supporting infrastructure to ensure we can continue to support the world’s finest naval force now and into the future,” said Secretary Geurts.

For the foreseeable future, PHNSY & IMF’s nuclear maintenance workload will remain steady or increase. To accommodate this workload, the Navy enhanced PHNSY & IMF’s workforce by adding more than 1,000 employees between 2010 and 2018.

“We have got to hold our promise with the shipyard workers to give them world-class facilities so they can continue to do the world-class work they’ve been doing for us,” said Secretary Geurts.

As part of SIOP, the Navy will design and construct a first-of-its-kind Dry Dock Production Facility at PHNSY & IMF. When completed, this state-of-the-art public shipyard facility will move work that currently takes places in different areas around the shipyard to a single, covered, environmentally-controlled facility that will incorporate facilities designed to improve the work life of shipyard workers and increase productivity. Preliminary design work for the Dry Dock Production Facility is currently underway. The Navy anticipates awarding the construction contract in early 2023 with the construction completed by early 2028.

Once the last Los Angeles-class submarine availability is complete in 2022, the shipyard’s Dry Dock #3 will become obsolete due to its size. To maintain and grow PHNSY & IMF’s nuclear maintenance capacity and provide the best value to taxpayers, the Navy is evaluating options to ensure the dry dock capacity is adequately replaced.

Secretary Geurts toured Dry Dock #3 and viewed the planned site for the Dry Dock Production Facility. He also passed by aged facilities, temporary structures and laydown sites in need of SIOP optimization.

“Our naval shipyards are national treasures, if we’re going to compete and win at a global scale, it’s going to be because we have these naval shipyards delivering for us,” said Secretary Geurts.

PHNSY & IMF is a field activity of Naval Sea Systems Command and a one-stop regional maintenance center for the Navy’s surface ships and submarines. It is the largest industrial employer in the state of Hawaii with a combined civilian and military workforce of approximately 6,500. It is the most comprehensive fleet repair and maintenance facility between the U.S. West Coast and the Far East, strategically located in the heart of the Pacific, being about a week’s steaming time closer to potential regional contingencies in East Asia.

 

For more information about Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard & IMF, visit:

Webpage: https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Home/Shipyards/PHNS-IMF/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PearlHarborNavalShipyard/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PHNSYIMF

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pearlharbornavalshipyard/