Jennifer Boykin is slated to step down at the end of the month as president of Newport News Shipbuilding.
She is leaving at a time when the demand for submarines is five times what it was a decade ago, she said.
Newport News produces two classes of submarines for the Navy. It is expected to benefit from a U.S. partnership with Australia and the United Kingdom, dubbed AUKUS, which will require more Virginia Class submarines.
“What the nation is seeing is a generational demand, a generational increase in demand for submarine construction,” Boykin said. “Between the Virginia class, the need to support AUKUS as we go forward, and the Columbia class submarine.”
In the last month, Boykin has been making her last public appearances as vice president at Huntington Ingalls Industries before she retires. She was the point person for the company’s announcement that HII was acquiring the assets of South Carolina-based W Industries. She was also on hand for the christening of the next Virginia Class submarine, USS Arkansas, at Newport News.
The company is under increased pressure to step up production. Along with Electric Boat, it is the only company in the U.S. that can build submarines.
“We're partnering with the Navy on all fronts. They are putting billions into the submarine industrial base,” Boykin said. “And so working with the Navy to make sure that those funds go to the right place.”
The Navy wants to build Virginia Class submarines at the rate of two subs a year. The biggest bottle neck is still the supply chain. W Industries will begin producing large modules full-time for Newport News.
“We're working with the Navy and the supply base, and that's starting to flow,” Boykin said. “So we can see a line of sight to when those large sequence critical components will start to, you know, show up on time.”
The next highest priority is finding and keeping shipbuilders and increasing the skills of a workforce that has turned over significantly since the pandemic, Boykin said.
“We're working on wages to help stabilize and grow a more experienced workforce and build proficiency,” she said.
The volume of new workers was partly responsible for a series of improper welds that became public in October, when the company notified the Navy of the problem. After an internal review, HII found that two dozen out of 1,700 welders were involved, she said.
“The one thing that they had in common was that most of them, on average, had about three, three and a half years experience,” Boykin said. “So we did recognize that when you have that many new welders coming in, we did re-look at our surveillance program, our training program, all of that.”
The welders skipped the step of heating the metal before welding on some non-critical components. The improper welds were inspected and not deemed an issue and did not delay production or impact ships in the fleet, Boykin said.
“No ships or submarines in service are at any risk. We have cleared those. That was the first thing we did with the Navy. These are really welds for ships that are under construction,” she said.
Boykin is retiring after 37 years with the company.
Kari Wilkinson has already been selected to serve as president of the company’s Newport News Shipbuilding division beginning in January. Wilkinson is currently head of the company’s Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi.
