Capt. LeBeau; Senator King, DEPSECDEF Hicks, Senators Hassan and Shaheen, Capt. Ettlich, Mr. Fehey, Capt. Gold, and Mr. Meier stand at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard’s Dry Dock 1 waterfront with the new concrete entrance structure in the background (U.S. Navy photo).
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (PNSY) hosted Deputy Secretary of Defense, Dr. Kathleen Hicks July 7. DEPSECDEF Hicks was joined by Senators Angus King (I-ME), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), and Maggie Hassan (D-NH) for a tour focused on the shipyard’s infrastructure and modernization.
The tour highlighted the new superflood concrete entrance structure that weighs more than 5,000 tons with a height of more than 65 feet. Capt. Warren LeBeau, NAVSEA’s Program Manager for the Navy’s Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program (SIOP), explained how the Dry Dock 1 project represents a significant piece of SIOP improvement at the Portsmouth shipyard, providing greater capacity and throughput for the submarine maintenance, modernization, and repair missions.
SIOP is a comprehensive, 20-year, $21-billion effort to modernize infrastructure at the four naval shipyards in Kittery, Maine; Norfolk, Virginia; Bremerton, Washington; and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.