By Steve Klamkin WPRO News
Submarine builder Electric Boat Co. said Friday that it would continue to hire hundreds of workers at its Rhode Island and Connecticut facilities in the years to come, as it acknowledged a multi-billion dollar contract for construction of Columbia-class submarines.
“We’ve been slowed a little bit as a result of COVID,” said Electric Boat President Kevin Graney at the company’s sprawling Quonset Point headquarters in North Kingstown. “We’ve got hiring going on right now pretty much full bore.” The company is looking for a full range of workers, with an emphasis on hiring pipefitters and welders.
The U.S. Navy Thursday finalized a $9.474 billion dollar contract to build the lead boat, USS Columbia, and for the second boat in the class, designated USS Wisconsin.
Construction of Columbia is already underway with a scheduled delivery date in 2027, and the Wisconsin to follow two years later, Graney said. Following that, EB is expected to turn out a dozen boats, one each year.
“The awarding of this contract for the first and second Columbia-class submarine is an important victory for Rhode Island’s workforce, for Electric Boat, for the entire supply chain, and for the nation’s Navy and for our national security,” said Senator Jack Reed, the Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
He was joined at a brief ceremony by fellow Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and by Congressmen Jim Langevin and David Cicilline.
The Columbia-class submarines, the largest submarines ever built by the United States at 560 feet long, are intended to replace the aging Ohio-class fleet of nuclear ballistic submarines, part of the nation’s nuclear triad, comprised of land, sea and air-launched nuclear weapons.
Electric Boat’s Graney said the company is already thinking ahead to development of SSN(X), a new class of attack submarine to replace the Virginia-class attack submarine.