Huntington Ingalls Industries [HII] on Friday said that Chris Kastner, the company’s chief operating officer (COO), will take over as president and CEO effective March 1, succeeding Mike Petters, the only chief executive the company has known since it was spun out of Northrop Grumman
[NOC] in 2011.
HII said that Kastner’s appointment to lead the shipbuilding and professional services company is part of its multi-year succession planning process. Petters, 62, will remain as executive vice chairman, helping with the leadership transition and will remain an employee through 2022.
Kastner, 58, has been COO since February 2021, giving him the responsibility for overseeing the company’s two shipbuilding segments, Ingalls Shipbuilding and Newport News Shipbuilding, and its technology solutions and services segment, Technical Solutions.
Before his COO job, Kastner that was chief financial officer (CFO) since March 2016. He also served as CFO of Ingalls Shipbuilding division, before and after it was divested by Northrop Grumman. His various CFO and COO responsibilities, including directing corporate strategy for growth and profitability, planning and analysis, corporate finances, mergers and acquisitions, and management functions, have given him deep insight into the company’s operations.
At Northrop Grumman, Kastner had roles in several Air Force programs, the B-2 stealth bomber, the Joint STARS ground-surveillance aircraft program, and the Global Hawk unmanned aircraft system. He also served as corporate director of strategic transactions.
HII will report its 2021 results next week, with sales expected to be in the $9.5 billion range and has a current backlog of about $48 billion. Under Petters and Kastner, HII has expanded from just being a shipbuilder to also being a technology and technical solutions provider through a series of acquisitions, and has built a strong presence in unmanned maritime systems.
Petters, a 1982 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy with a degree in physics, has been with HII and its legacy shipbuilding businesses since 1987, beginning with Newport News Shipbuilding in the Los Angeles-class attack submarine construction division.
“We’ve spent the past 11 years building a company for the 21st Century,” Petters said in a statement. “HII is now that company, with a leadership team and portfolio to serve our nation’s critical national security needs. I am proud of the work we have done together and excited to watch the company fulfill its promise. I have complete confident in Chris and the senior leadership team in this next chapter.”
HII has a mandatory retirement age of 65, although the board can provide an exception.
HII is the nation’s only developer and builder of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and the company’s shipbuilding operations also produce Navy nuclear submarines, destroyers, amphibious ships, and Coast Guard cutters. The company’s Technical Solutions segment develops and provides unmanned maritime systems, fleet sustainment, nuclear and environmental services, live and virtual training solutions, and intelligence, surveillance reconnaissance sensors, systems and integration.