Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro convened a new group of government shipbuilders last week that aims to improve shipbuilding and repair collaboration across government departments.
This new group, dubbed the Government Shipbuilders Council (GSC), met for its inaugural session at the Coast Guard Yard in Baltimore on Nov. 16. It particularly seeks to improve collaboration across departments to improve the American shipbuilding and repair industries.
The council includes representatives from four government departments, including several within DoD: the Navy, Army and Office of the Secretary of Defense; the Coast Guard within the Department of Homeland Security; the Maritime Administration within the Department of Transportation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration within the Department of Commerce.
The initial GSC members at the meeting included the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy (DASN) for Ships, Military Sealift Command’s (MSC) Director of Ship Management; Assistant Commandant of the Coast Guard for Acquisition (CG 9) and Assistant Commandant for Engineering & Logistics (CG-4); Army Program Executive Officer for Combat Support & Combat Service Support (CS & CSS); National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Director of Marine and Aviation Operations; Maritime Administration’s Associate Administrator for Strategic Sealift; and the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Materiel Readiness.
During the opening meeting, Del Toro argued the council seeks to improve how the government does ship acquisition and ship maintenance by working through common and singular challenges among those that contract for shipbuilding; identify opportunities to leverage each organization’s resources to maximize government cost and time savings; share best practices and lesson learned; and support strategic decision making to help strengthen the American shipbuilding industrial base.
“Together, we represent four different cabinet departments—Defense, Transportation, Homeland Security, and Commerce—and five separate government shipbuilders. This Council is a tremendous example of the whole-of-government effort we need to rebuild our nation’s comprehensive maritime power—a strategic imperative requiring a new Maritime Statecraft,” Del Toro said.
Del Toro tied this council to how he is helping conduct a new “maritime statecraft” he argued in favor of during a speech at the Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in September (Defense Daily, Sept. 29).
At the time, the Secretary said this includes a whole-of-government approach to build comprehensive maritime power as well as naval diplomacy.
“Collectively, our organizations are at the heart of what it will take to restore our Nation’s competitive shipbuilding and repair landscape—including private and public investments in world-class manufacturing and shipbuilding facilities—and the highly-skilled workforce necessary to keep them running,” he said during the GSC opening.
“We must establish programs that build capacity in fields like naval architecture, engineering, and lifecycle management, as well as technical expertise in nuclear welding, robotics, software management, and additive manufacturing,” Del Toro continued.
He also underscored agility in ship production and design requires developing new digital tools to improve efficiency and capacity, so he encouraged the council members to convene at locations like shipyards, other institutions or academies where maritime leaders are trained.