Members of the PSSRA board of directors are preparing to travel to the other Washington next week (March 16th). We will be participating in what has become a major annual meeting of Navy maintenance leadership and private sector ship repair people from all over the nation. The National Ship Repair Industry Conference (NSRIC) schedule spans three days and includes one day primarily with the Navy, one day with congressional leadership (Hill day) and a third day where industry reflects on what we have learned and explores ways that we can work together.
PSSRA prepared a brief for Hill day and this year, as in past years, Vigor Shipyards has generously assisted with setting up meetings with our Washington State delegation. Our message is that our association is strong and that we are working hard with the local Navy to do high quality work and meet all safety and environmental requirements every day. But another part of our message is that low and volatile workload in our region threatens our ability to deliver the performance that the Navy desires. Private sector workload continues to shrink even as the Naval shipyard is hiring hundreds of new employees every few months.
We make a case that private sector can and should be a major part of the answer to many of the shipyard’s challenges. We can be the surge capacity for their insurmountable peaks and we can help them with work that has not traditionally been outsourced, ship recycling. This would allow them to focus more fully on core nuclear and propulsion work.
When we return from DC we will share information and get briefing materials and articles posted about what we learned from the speakers. NSRIC will also be the subject of our April 21st meeting so please make plans to attend.
As always, I appreciate your support and encouragement. This is a great organization and the work that you all do in support of our national defense is extremely important.
Sincerely,
