President Trump announced a collective investment effort between defense tech firm Anduril and the U.S. Navy worth an estimated $6.6 billion. $3.7 billion comes from the private sector by defense technology firm Anduril in a new shipyard at Sparrows Point, Maryland, alongside $2.9 billion in Navy contract funding. The facility will build next-generation submarines including autonomous underwater vessels.
When you really think about this effort closely, putting this kind of investment into U.S. shipbuilding in Baltimore is a genuine swing for the fences to reestablish northeast industrial manufacturing. I give President Trump a lot of credit for taking this big a leap of faith in the Baltimore region.
The Trump administration has announced new or revitalized shipbuilding in Galveston TX, Houma LA, Brownsville TX and now Sparrows Point MD. While the southern regions will likely be capable of transferring a solid work ethic into a successful America-First business model, trying to reindustrialize Baltimore away from a dependency mindset (built on a foundation of corruption) to a skilled jobs work ethic, is a very bold move.
There will certainly be job opportunities for people outside the immediate Baltimore area who are willing to travel for high-paying good quality work. Anduril will also need some form of trade-school, apprenticeship or vocational training if the manufacturing hub is to be generationally changing. This really is a major move to put money behind reindustrialization in one of the key areas where it was destroyed by leftism, globalism and corruption. WATCH:
.
WASHINGTON — President Trump announced Tuesday that the federal government and Anduril Industries are investing a total of $6.6 billion to build critical components for Virginia-class submarines in Baltimore, a joint effort meant to boost US maritime dominance.
The shipyard, known as Arsenal-2, will be supported by $3.7 billion in capital from California-based Anduril and another $2.9 billion from a contract between the company and the US Navy.
The facility will be constructed at Sparrows Point, site of a shipyard and a former Bethlehem Steel plant, to produce torpedo tubes and eventually ship sections — including bows and sterns, among other components, an industry official said.
Trump said in a speech later near the project site at Tradepoint Atlantic that the effort will make the US both “feared” and “respected” on the world stage.
“We will build the future of America’s navy right here in Baltimore. And it will be a future of peace through strength,” the president added. “We have never been a stronger country than we are right now.” (read more)
Balto is an interesting choice of sites for that kind of serious investment.
You raise one of the greatest concerns of rebuilding America…..a dedicated dependable workforce. Will there be enough incentive to get people to put their cell phone down, get engaged and actually care enough to do skilled labor.
My past experiences (admittedly limited) at the shipping terminals in the north east is that labor unions make for a lazy privileged workforce with an attitude.
Ditto that last sentence.
As a smug union member….I resemble that remark….priveldged somewhat…..COMPETENT mostly…..lazy ? No…..
no more than the general cross section of workers …..But unlike most workers…… MAGA LIFERS and early adopters TO A MAN.
Contrary to common whiney beliefs.
Sorry to step on toes and yeah its never wise to categorize. MAGA on.
My favorite union is . . . The Border Patrol Agents Union. 😊
Touché. 👍🏻
So are you implying that “MAGA LIFERS and early adopters” are lazy, or did I read that wrong?
Thanks
????
1st. I state I AM a union member implying I speak for my union brothers.
2nd. I state I am NOT LAZY & by association/implication “WE” are no more lazy than “other” workers….
3rd. I state, yet, UNLIKE THEM ( aforementioned most workers) WE (union implied) “are MAGA LIFERS & early adopters to A MAN” ….
I then circle back to the (occasionally true) false impression/belief…..implied urban legend…. in an attempt at re-enforcing the original rebuttal that union brothers are NOT LAZY.
Sorry for confusion & lack of clarity by trying to be laconic. 😉🍻
Thanks
Have never been part of a union, worked at many union sites thru the years for the most part no issues.
As with everything in life there is always going to be an exception, tried to be nice and handle it with that person. If it was ongoing told them to get the foreman or steward, problem solved for duration of my stay.
Your name always brings a laugh.
My hat is off to you! Thank you for making America great in more than one way.
My dad was a proud, hard working union man and a WW2 vet. We were raised Democrats. He would be turning over in his grave if he saw the sorry state of today’s Democrat party.
Dyed in the wool, blue collar Republican immediate family never known any different….entire extended NYC family were all old skool dem union members ….. which would pass for/as conservatives in today’s INSANITY….which is reminiscent of the 70’s INSANITY.
Different yet respectable decent people that we disagreed with & had beers together
Sue
…my dad was WW2 vet as well….they had NOTHING handed to them when they got back….but my dad got his clan out of the city to the newly created “burbs” and there we cheered Kennedy’s motorcade AND NIXON’S with the admonition from Dad that “We ONLY VOTE Republican”. ….Even though we support & respect the “other” side.
C.B.
my Dad also was a WWII vet, he and his buddies in Lincoln NE graduated high school in June, 1942, then all the new graduate boys went to the recruiting office to enlist.
He sometimes told the story of how when he was a school kid he was somehow part of the unionized delivery boys for the old Western Union Telegram delivery system.
The union helped “level out the lumps” in the constant work tension between more production and treating the workers like humans.
Decades later he was in management with his corporate employer and he had a positive attitude toward working with the unionized guys in his department, everything worked just fine.
Unions can help with the need to dial back the multiple cheap-labor visa categories, such as the notorious H-1B visas.
My Dad was a WWII vet, drafted out of HS came back home and graduated in 47. He worked blue collar but eventually became management as a foreman (first level supervisor). His company was UAW and the shop steward his biggest problem. He would tell us kids about workers with a copy of the contract in their back pants pocket and the first thing out of their mouth was “not in my job description”.
UAW’s big thing was “wage parity” and they didn’t care at all about the state of the company. So they ended up putting the company out of business. What had been acres of manufacturing is now retail and warehousing.
My mom was a teacher, very smart, HATED THE UNION. Saw what they did, not teaching phonics to read, downgrading the literature in schools.
I watched the main unions at Pan Am (baggage handlers, mechanics, ground crew, & pilots) help mightily to bankrupt the great airline. We ALL knew that the industry was changing, we had huge issues competing with foreign-owned airlines who didn’t have shareholders to please, a deregulated industry, and a string of incompetent executives, but if every one of us had given a bit, we might have saved Pan Am.
I watched the Carpenters Union in CA sell out its members so they could turn a blind eye to all the contractors that would hire cheap illegal labor that flooded the state with inferior people from an inferior culture & no respect for law.
Worst of all are gov’t employee unions. Should be outlawed, as the taxpayers have NO REPRESENTATION IN NEGOTIATIONS. CORRUPT & GREEDY AS HELL.
Sounds like he’s trying to rebuild “the arsenal of democracy,” so are we in a s*** sandwich bigger than anyone outside those trying to destroy the Country realizes?
Union here, not necessarily by choice as it was a condition of accepting the job offer as a shipbuilder.
There’s a not insignificant fraction of the unions at my workplace in the MAGA camp. Unsurprisingly, that skew is more pronounced with anything in the production side, ie trades. Unfortunately as with everywhere there are slackers in the workplace as employees are drawn from the larger population.
trump also embracing and extending the huge 80 year AI agenda
essentially creating an AI military industrial complex
i expected Dario wanted government capture by Bernie and Warren instead he got Rubio and Hegseth and Bessent
China is busy dumping LLM models on world market, probably corruptly distilled from Claude and OpemAI and rotating door of BRICS mercs and the suppliers to those frontier labs which sell to all sides
Super Intelligence Force anyone?
skynet
I submit, labor aside, that history and geography are obvious considerations- although the Carolina coast offers a worthy alternative for such an important industry.
robots and internal migration of the small army of maybe a million young men, mostly white completely displaced by last 10 years
So do teacher unions.
The Worst!!
Baltimore is a hot mess, government-wise. I lived there for six years many decades ago. It was bad then. Crime central.
All supported by the odious Elijah Cummings. And Baltimore school children only have 8% that read at grade level! And they’re unashamed about it.
Baltimore is historically a working-class town, largely Italian though also African-American (Frederick Douglass worked in Baltimore shipbuilding before escaping slavery). Bringing Bethlehem Shipbuilding back to life is a good idea. Now if we could only get Brooklyn Navy Yard back…
We in the IBEW accept the challenge and look forward to dispelling those old stereotypes by implementing our proficient skills and dedicated workforce in assisting our VSGPDJT’s vision for America. MAGA 🇺🇸
Well spoke Patrick. Hear Hear! MAGA!
Stop the steal. Maryland will heal.
get rid of the corruptocrats. Good people are still here.
I suspect Maryland has more government dollars per capita than perhaps any other state in the union. This should have gone to any midwestern state.
$13B that was never tracked or accounted for, from the corrupt Elijah Cummings to MD.
The MIC in action. “public, private partnerships” my hind-nether.
I agree because the public always gets pushed aside. it’s about to happen again here in Florida with the Brightline fast mover train they built. it went bankrupt, and now the citizens are gonna have to pay for it.
Someone was telling me a couple of interesting facts about the Brightline, recently.
First, they average one pedestrian fatality per week.
Second, they split the rail line business into two entities: the infrastructure/building component and the operational component. The former went bankrupt, the latter did not. So, the railroad will continue to operate. The creditors got stiffed but no reason the taxpayers should be on the hook. Let me know if you understand differently.
I’m betting the men from the Philadelphia area would love to have those high paying skilled jobs, too. They’ll carpool for the 2 hour drive.
There was also an earlier contract awarded for Rhoads Industries & General Dynamics Electric Boat to do submarine related work at the old Philadelphia Navy Yard site.
In the far southeastern suburban Philly areas, getting to that area of Baltimore can also be closer to 1 hour than 2.
I know the Sparrows Point and Dundalk area. The families that used to for work the steel mill are still there. A collection of proud Polish and German neighborhoods that aren’t afraid of hard work. They will jump at the opportunity for good paying jobs on the north peninsula that has suffered since the collapse of the Key Bridge.
God Bless America
and
God Bless
POTUS
DONALD JOHN TRUMP
✝️🙏🇺🇸
Wow! What a man our great President is.
Trade schools for the young people men and women will give them a career to look forward to.
He never stops.
Thank you Lord for sending him to love America.
Gods Blessings
MAGA
What other president ever did this? Why are the midterms even in any doubt? If only we could give him a third term.
We can
“Splain” that one please Bounce.
Here is one explanation:
Trump’s first term should not count considering how much he was harassed and undermined by the the Democrat Party, Deep State, RINO Republicans in league with the Deep State, and a very corrupt judiciary.
Obama, “those jobs aren’t coming back” must be turning purple with jealousy and rage.
Exactly. Those jobs were never supposed to come back.
My concern is the leftist leadership. Imagine putting that in LA or Seattle.
But then, where on the Atlantic can you put shipbuilding without leftist state leadership? Florida?
To me once North of Fredericksburg VA up 95 and after crossing the Bridge tunnel coming up the Eastern shore around Dover DE, attitudes about work and handouts change, and not for the better. Truly just my observations.
Ask any trucker running the Eastern seaboard who has delivered north of Virginia up through New England what its like Buckwheat. You are absolutely right sir. They can’t wait to get their load but then will tell you in no uncertain terms to be gone we don’t want you here.
Not wrong. But I would suspect that some of those attitudes would change the further you got from the highly urbanized I-95 corridor into what suburban and rural areas there may be.
The big cities have an outsized influence on their State’s politics as we well know. Workforces are not entirely identical within the same State.
Newport News, Wilmington (Nc.), Savannah and Charleston. Yeap they’re purple at best but not deep blue.
One hell of a gamble…..work ethic, organized crime, etc…but then that’s why he’s the Pres and I’m not. I wouldn’t put a lemonade stand in Baltimore….
Pelosi family is from that area, Baltimore. Pelosi moved west to spread her cancer of commliberaprogress to infect CA. Nancy is a bad seed.
That’s the funny thing about Nancy and that bad seed thing; her father sent her out west to get “married” instead of keeping her near their home.
And who did she “marry”?
Why, it was Mr HammerTime.
Makes you wonder who the beard really was, doesn’t it?
Doesn’t it make you wonder why her kids look like JPaul Getty, too?
And, yes, she carried her cancer with her.
0.o
Pelosi remained bicoastal. Look at everyone she always had surrounding her (Capo
like), at elbow’s length. Anyone photographed at her side was always from Maryland.
Old habits are hard to break.
My own little wet dream about Baltimore? Have someone do some SERIOUS digging
into the finances of Johns Hopkins. Every time a scandal comes out about a Baltimore
or Maryland dem, there’s some way, shape, or form of money laundering that’s
channeled through that “highly respected” entity.
Boy you can say that again, she’s as bad as they come, evil to the core.
South Carolina. North Carolina.
Del Mar Va peninsula.
Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas
South Carolina
With regards AUKUS, there have been many nay-sayers down here in Australia arguing that there is no way that the proposed 3 second hand Virginia class SSN’s would ever be sold to the RAN in the early 2030’s as intended because the US can’t produce enough new ones for themselves – I always felt that argument underestimated the ability of the US to ramp up production if it chose to, and here we are…
Trump uses economic success like a gun at a knife fight. I’m hoping Wes Moore makes a fool out of himself over this.
Well, he was NOT invited to the Sparrows Point event, although the Middies were in attendance.
Less More doesn’t have to speak to make that happen
Apple core
Baltimore
I was in Baltimore for the NZ v South Africa rugby game recently and the city was disgusting. An embarrassment as an American -although it probably reminded the SAs of parts of Joburg. The streets around the stadium were dirty, empty (except for the fans) smelled in various spots of pot and urine. In walking around, the only signs of real life were a fire house and a cathedral. We managed to find a pre-game respite in an Irish bar. The city felt uncared for, forgotten and abandoned. The fruits of leftism, globalism, corruption indeed.
“Charm City” alright.
Vocational trading or not, they cannot change the race of the people there.
The people there will not be the workforce. The workforce will be drawn from adjacent counties or people who move there to work at the shipyard.
The adjacent counties are pretty nice, actually.
People will migrate for jobs, they always have. Then hopefully things will change where they migrate to.
I am amazed because of our total idiot governor. Our state assemblies are looking hard into reparations again. I really haven’t seen any information about Maryland’s or Moore’s role in this.
Likely told to shut the hell up……….
We moved from Maryland back to NC 3 months ago. So glad.
NY/LI to NC 2007 checkmate
(R)
Welcome to NC!
moved from NYC to Portland (OR) ~30 years ago
couldn’t foresee that it would be jumping from the frying pan into what was going to become the fire
Isn’t the workforce in the area better suited for hip hop/rap, drive by shootings, home invasions, car-jackings, teen takeovers and basketball?
Yeah, but you import a new workforce.
Or move your facility to where the wo4kforce is….
No, this is not the city, it’s in the county in a very blue collar area. Are some of them used to welfare and dependency? Yes, but not all by a long shot.
The “Zman” (God rest his soul ….sorely missed) named/referred to it Lagos on the Chesapeake.
It is a mistake to put a major facility in a state controlled by leftists.
Not so much with a facility and end item with national security implications… I think the biggest challenge is finding people who want to work… not that can do the job but want to work.
I would add another point to that.
A lot of people are not just going to line up for a job short of desperation, if the compensation (some of which is non-monetary) is well below the perceived expectations.
The equilibrium point is about where the employer can fill most of their positions in a reasonable of time and employees have reason to stick with their employer rather than contributing to high turnover rates.
The TLDR is that if someone is claiming that jobs cannot be filled, usually left unsaid is at a particular price point. Company culture withstanding.
Technical jobs is like a courtship between leadership and workers. It takes both to make the relationship work. People don’t leave companies, they leave the leadership that does not value their people or celebrate their accomplishments. The worst that can happen is you hire a lot of high power talent that grows the company then leaves after a short time taking their experience and know how out the door with them.
Indeed. I have seen this in action between my military service and elsewhere.
I’m concerned about this, as most former union employees still think they’re gonna go back to the days when coal miners got $105k, plus lavish benefits, etc., without ever learning that the union priced itself out of the market.
I don’t disagree that more than a fair number have had that sentiment and effectively priced businesses out of the market with their excesses. But that was only part of the story. We also have had massive industrial outsourcing that successive leaders encouraged that screwed everyone over and especially the non-union work forces that would have acted as a check on the unions in as many years. Free trade was not without costs to Main Street.
Probably could find similar numbers of accounts where businesses abused their workforce as unions bled the employer for what they could. Self interest is the rule. Maintaining win/win relationships where every party feels they get some of what they want out of it it is where it is at.
Unions are a necessary balance in our National economy between Big Business as well as between the States that are right to work and the others that are not.
another point, if you’ll accept it:
where is the workforce (the technical, high level people) going to live (within a reasonable communting distance
The grifters are always moaning about ” lack of opportunity “. Here is a great one. Go to work, earn a living, have a family, make a life.
The congressional district of Kweisi Mfume, a hop skip from those of Hoyer and Raskin – Ouch.
Years back, rode Amtrak into Baltimore for business reasons and there then, were some reasonable places on the waterfront. But, it was rotting before my eyes as time went by. The atmosphere was increasingly terrible, in all terms – people, air, businesses, etc.
My first response to this news was that it seemed like a terrible idea to seek decent results there as the denizens of the vacinity would be toxic. Saddened when I realized the degree to which I have become cynical as to “E Pluribus Unum.” God Bless President Trump for seeking renewal across our nation.
I have done amtrak to baltimore-penn a number of times, not a place I want to linger in
You will get a lot of the Hispanic population in Baltimore to do that work.
I have no many who have come to Louisiana from Baltimore about 15 years ago. Most married Americans, have families, love where they are from and where they are with same vigor.
Most are good people, some I call friend.
Sparrows Point is the perfect location, because nothing of note has been going on there for decades. The Port of Baltimore has been dying on the vine and the economy of Baltimore twisting in the wind as a result, hence the dependency mindset and the firm grip of the Marxist Democrats on the area. Way back when, if memory serves, Baltimore was the second busiest seaport on the East coast, but due to government corruption, incompetence and mismanagement, this is but a distant memory.
For peak film making as well as an un-apologetic snapshot of Baltimore in the early 2000’s, I would refer you to HBO’s “The Wire” series.
Interesting development.
Brings to mind some recent buzz about modularized construction techniques being discussed at General Dynamics Bath Ironworks.
In theory, multiple yards could build major sections of a ship faster to be integrated at another shipyard. The bow built in one place, the stern in another. This come up in discussions about the BBGN actually, with Newport News being quite tied up with existing programs. This would allow the new Defiant Class battleships to be built elsewhere, brought in under conventional power and then have the reactor module(s) dropped in for finishing the hull.
There was also talk of standardized compartments like with the fan rooms that run the HVAC systems on the DDG-51’s, which I can say are not already standardized as such.
The discussions also include a modularized design for the 5″ guns that could be built and tested off-site with its supporting systems then shipped to the hull and more or less dropped into a hull for final integration.
The short of it, BIW was going to be testing out some of these ideas on the DDG-51 program for building the Arleigh Burke Destroyers in the near term faster for the US Navy.
These techniques if proven out, will be brought in for the initial construction of the first BBGNs that BIW will be splitting design and fabrication work with other shipbuilders on.
Interesting insights, thx.
I seemed to recall that the WWII Liberty ships were built in sections in different yards, then joined later at another yard. A simple search said my memory was correct.
“Yes, Liberty ships were built in sections that were prefabricated at different locations and then transported to a shipyard for final assembly. This method allowed for faster production and efficiency during World War II.”
My President, my country!!
Liberty ships were also much less sophisticated technologically.
More difficult with the added complexity of modern tech, but the same principle applies. Doing it right should bring down the production times way down per hull.
For a reference point, BIW hit a peak time between laying the keel of a DDG and delivering a finished hull ready for commissioning to the US Navy inside a year. That was before the DDG-51 program was originally shutdown. Everything done by the company since was an effort to achieve, and surpass that prior bar.
Easier said then done with much of the original multi-decade workforce having retired amidst that program shutdown and restart. Not many of those old timers left.
However, I can see some of that shipbuilding talent being redeveloped in real time. Last I knew BIW was the only US shipbuilder that was continuously improving production times thanks to a dedicated workforce. Admittedly, there was a rough patch a few years back but things are generally on an upswing and it shows with each successive hull coming in under the scheduling for the prior hull.
Maybe Anduril could get involved with the local bridge building project.
Anduril — in the world of Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Ring” is the sword reforged, called The Flame of the West, wielded by an unlikely but heroic man to help defeat the evil rising from the East.
Love the coincidence.
“…trying to reindustrialize Baltimore away from a dependency mindset (built on a foundation of corruption) to a skilled jobs work ethic, is a very bold move.” Thank You, Sundance, & continued BLESSINGS on YOU!
We Will PRAY for success on this “very bold move”!
Our LORD has been with PRESIDENT TRUMP! HE has kept, protected, & guided him through ALL!
We MUST continue to do our part with PRAYER & Supplication for our Amazing Gift of this President!
Call on our FATHER to Encourage President Trump & his Team. Also, Encourage each other!
Positives attitudes do count and have an amazing effect on outcomes.
Continue to “TRUST IN THE LORD with all your heart…”
Do NOT let the Adversary defeat in thought, word, or deed.
Once again, we stop & PRAISE THE LORD for HIS Gift of PRESIDENT TRUMP!
AMEN, AMEN, & AMEN
Great news for us, hopefully Maryland won’t tax and regulate the ship yard into oblivion.
Let’s not allow ourselves to be distracted by the political noise and so miss the Main Point.
President Trump is President for ALL Americans.
He doesn’t care if you live in a red state or a blue state.
He doesn’t care about your party affiliation or who you have voted for in the past.
President Trump wants to make ALL of America Great Again, so that ALL Americans may live great lives.
As has been noted elsewhere on this thread, lots of union members support President Trump.
Make Industrial Manufacturing Great Again in all parts of the United States and you go a long way towards creating an unbeatable MAGA voting bloc.
President Trump is a Very Stable Genius! Greatest President since Washington!!
This is WINNING and it’s exactly what I voted for.
😎
MIMGA Amen!
“Anduril will also need some form of trade-school, apprenticeship or vocational training if the manufacturing hub is to be generationally changing. This really is a major move to put money behind reindustrialization in one of the key areas where it was destroyed by leftism, globalism and corruption.”
Knowledge and work ethic that used to be handed down through families was cut off by killing our manufacturing, TPTB clamoring “service economy service economy” yada yada blah blah blah.
Sustained work, adapting on the fly as the ships and the techniques improve, we can rebuild that workforce that “knows how to do things”.
Granted my experience is limited, but with the support of my leadership I have yet to find anyone where I work to want to learn and put in the time to learn a trade like welding or basic machining. Anymore I stopped asking “can I?” and ask “should I?” I have yet to meet a person asking “can I?” Meaning when you are in a near hopeless situation, what can you do to fix the problem? I have not seen many younger people who exhibit this trait…
Most of our parents and grandparents understood poverty; no doubt other older Treepers understand poverty whether we personally experienced it or not. Poverty is not the inability to afford a new phone. Poverty is hunger and dark and cold and sleeping in a car and digging through dumpsters for scraps. Poverty motivates through fear. Kids who never had a moment’s doubt about chicken nugs in the freezer lack this motivation. I’m happy for them not to be fearful, but human history suggests that it is an aberration.
Prior to “HR” (60’s &70’s in my experience) dept’s…….we had, or relied on….. referral hiring, and the accountability mechanism had/has its own name: reputation collateral.
The person who vouched for you, staked their standing on your performance, so if you screwed up, it cost them.
HR depts evolved bc businesses needed a place for the deluge of equal opportunity workers (women) into the “workplace”……and the EQUAL RIGHTS legal defense dept (HR) was born…..meritocracy & reputational collateral waned….feelings and paperwork took over.
I started my career in the late sixties as a Western Electric employee on loan to Bell Laboratories. Much of the employee base was generational. Many times entire families worked there and carried on the tradition of a solid work ethic. I know that the men I worked for in Bell Laboratories were brilliant. My career ended many decades later and it just so happens that by that time General Dynamics had bought my division. I can assure you they know how to build ships above and below the water.
I had family that worked for NY TEL/ATT and retired with the break up….Best friends dad worked @ Bell Labs Holmdel, Murray Hill & Whippany NJ I believe.
My Bell Labs group was originally from Whippany.
Reputation collateral still exists, in my line of employment.
Which I will not discuss. But I used to moonlight to different job sites, and my
primary work gig would occasionally hire. They then had the reputation for
staying sufficiently staffed, and listening to the work force.
The amount of times that I had extremely lazy, non caring individuals ask
me for a referral to my primary work gig is sky high. The amount of times
that I actually said we had an opening was rock bottom. Because I wasn’t
going to be THAT GUY that invited a turd to the punch bow.
Galveston Texas College of the Mainland and Gulf Copper are launching two apprenticeship programs designed to train a new generation of Texas shipbuilders as the maritime industry prepares for a $1 billion expansion expected to create thousands of jobs along the Gulf Coast.
College and company officials formally announced the partnership Monday, unveiling U.S. Department of Labor-registered apprenticeships for marine fabricators and quality assurance and quality control inspectors.
The marine fabricator apprenticeship initially launched through a partnership between Gulf Copper and Galveston College before expanding to College of the Mainland. The company has since expanded its training network to include Lamar State College Port Arthur as it prepares for growing workforce demands tied to shipbuilding along the Texas Gulf Coast.
The programs combine classroom instruction at College of the Mainland with paid, hands-on training at Gulf Copper facilities. Apprentices are full-time Gulf Copper employees, and the company covers their tuition.
The marine fabricator program lasts about 16 months and prepares apprentices to become shipfitters, while the seven-month quality assurance and quality control program trains inspectors responsible for ensuring welding and other ship construction work meets required standards.
The training comes as Davie Defense undertakes a planned $1 billion modernization of Gulf Copper’s Texas shipyards to expand capacity for new ship construction. College of the Mainland President Helen Brewer said the expansion is expected to create about 2,400 direct jobs.
The company now has about 45 apprentices across five classes in its marine fabrication and quality control programs, Robert Schwager, training manager for Gulf Copper, said. The new quality assurance and quality control program at College of the Mainland includes two classes of 12 students each and could eventually scale up to 30 students.
Gulf Copper also has an apprenticeship program underway with Lamar State College Port Arthur, where 31 students are participating across three marine fabricator classes.
Expanding the programs is vital because the company needs to develop a new generation of skilled workers while preserving knowledge held by longtime employees nearing retirement, Schwager said.
“The workforce is aging out,” Schwager said. “There’s a lot of knowledge that they have, but that knowledge needs to be transferred.”
The apprentices are expected to help support the return of large-scale shipbuilding to the Texas Gulf Coast, Schwager said. When icebreaker construction begins in 2028, it will have been nearly 83 years since the last ship was built on the Texas Gulf Coast.
Building that workforce will require more than welders, Schwager said. Gulf Copper will need workers skilled in metalworking, plate fitting, machining, electrical installation, quality control and corrosion prevention, among other trades.
The partnership gives students an opportunity to develop skills that can support lifelong careers while strengthening the region’s industrial workforce, U.S. Rep. Randy Weber said.
“You’re going to build a shipbuilding industry,” Weber told the apprentices. “The next generation of skilled workers is going to come out of Galveston County, and y’all are going to be ready to answer that call.”
The program is a natural fit for a community whose economy has long depended on skilled industrial workers, Mayor Abel Garza said.
“When College of the Mainland students succeed, Texas City and surrounding cities prevail,” Garza said. “When they win, we win. All the community wins.”
For apprentices, the program provides an immediate path into the industry while allowing them to earn a paycheck and avoid taking on college debt.
Marine fabricator apprentice Jacob Pearson spent three years welding in high school and worked in a fabrication shop before joining the program. The combination of employment and education helped draw him to the apprenticeship, he said.
“I didn’t plan on going to college at all because I didn’t want to be in debt,” Pearson said. “I saw this where you work and they pay for your college.”
Quality control apprentice Zacgari Cotter said he hopes to remain with Gulf Copper through the company’s first new ship construction.
“I want to be part of whatever the first ship you send out,” Cotter said. “I want to have my name on it.”
Gulf Copper is already recruiting from career and technical education programs in school districts across the region, including Galveston, Texas City, Santa Fe, Dickinson and Clear Creek, Schwager said.
“We just want people that have commitment and have a good work ethic and a good ability to work in teams,” Schwager said.
hate to be a buzzkill, but the dems will stop this in January after they retake everything
“Do it Anyway”
I am glad that President Trump is doing it anyway.
Interesting choice, which I sincerely pray pays off. However, as a retired Sailor (USN 02/1982 thru 06/2002), I will be much more impressed if the Trump Administration recommissions the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard.
Sorry. I grew up in Maryland. When I saw it in my rear view mirror decades ago I rejoiced. Never looked back. Maryland is a sewer of liberalism. Baltimore no less. Folks are on drugs.
Europe is so keen to get WW3 going over Ukraine….but whose industrial base is going to replace that base missing today because of globalism? China’s?
If Pearl Harbor happened this morning, the outcome might not be as predicted.
Some manufacturing jobs may be moving back to the US, but in the meantime those very same companies are moving hundreds or thousands of white collar jobs (accounting, AR, AP, Treasury, technology) jobs to countries like India. Thousands are been played off and whole departments closed in the US. This is happening now.
“…trying to reindustrialize Baltimore away from a dependency mindset (built on a foundation of corruption) to a skilled jobs work ethic, is a very bold move.”
I watched South Baltimore’s decline in skillset and work ethic first-hand, since my family-owned and operated a steel fabrication shop, machine shop and foundry in Highlandtown, near Sparrows Point, since 1897!
There was a solid labor pool of blue collar workers in neighboring Dundalk that we drew from for our employees. We were a teaching shop, who’d hire and train workers to be fitters, welders, layout men and machinists. Many of those we trained spent the rest of their working lives with us.
And then the federal government stepped in, subsidizing wages at the faltering Sparrows Point shipyard until the bloated wages they paid for know-nothing trainees were higher than what we paid for our skilled labor. They also prioritized hiring Baltimore’s inner-city youth and gave them job ‘training’ which included telling them why it was good to show up for work!
Many didn’t show up because they wanted the pay but weren’t willing to work for it!
So when the money ran out the government stopped subsidizing unskilled labor, Sparrows Point closed, and the on-the-job training done by local shops that had sustained those blue collar neighborhoods for generations were left in shambles!
By the time I left the family business and started my own in the mid 80s, I couldn’t find a single fab shop in Baltimore who could build my machine designs at a competitive price, so I went looking in rural Pennsylvania with shops staffed with farm boys with good job skills and the work ethic to put in a solid day’s work for their wages!
For the next 40 years I built a successful business on the skillset and work ethic that I could no longer find in Baltimore!
Trump and I are about the same age and I just retired last year after 55 years in business because after my wife passed away I lost my desire to keep working.
I wish President Trump’s new Sparrows Point shipyard much success…but I’m salty enough to know that unless the feds learned from their last botched efforts at Sparrows Point, training and keeping the people to operate it will be a tall order!
Thank you.
My pleasure!
Hey – Pssst, remember me? I’m Main Street small business. I’m responsible for more than 75% of the US economy, jobs. While Wall Street gets all the headlines I’m what a healthy economy depends on. Yeah, I know, announcements that multinational corporations are reshoring manufacturing in the US (necessary) and 80,000 jobs creates here and there are nice and flashy. But when government gets out of the way I create 1-50 jobs quietly, no fanfare, in aggregate totaling 240,000 jobs for every 80,000 large corporate jobs – in a healthy economy.
But this economy isn’t healthy. Main Street is still reeling from Scamdemic, where Wall Street titans like Walmart, Amazon had record profits while Main Street was shuttered. And the continued assault on entrepreneurship via overregulation, mandates, legal, health and changes in banking that reduce access to capital is whittling away both current small businesses and resulting in fewer entrepreneurs shaping the US economy.
As I shrink as a percentage of the US economy as a result, and mergers + consolidation scoop up more and more of the US economy into a larger percentage the result isn’t good for national security, nor economic freedom and liberty. Command-and-control centralized economies result when only a handful of large corporations, that are joined at the hip with government become the largest employers and economic drivers.
Yes, reshoring is necessary for supply chain resilience and national security. But small business is just as important. And I, small business Main Street, feel like my date to the ball left me to go dance with the prettiest girl Wall Street in the room while I stand in the back near the punch bowl.
And it’s the second time in six years, I’ve still not healed from Scamdemic.
I’m feeling ignored, but time. And I’m not happy about it. Where’s my relief from onerous public policies that are hollowing out Main Street?
A little love will go a long way. Thanks for listening.
Speaking of listening, be sure to listen to Scott Bessent’s latest interview about SI-meets-SB.
Having worked at Sparrows Point and also witnessing the demise of a once great City, I view this like trying to rebuild Cuba.
The Baltimore Harbor is strategically located for economic activity. The intact infrastructure of the port and available ship yards is similar to Philadelphia.
While most of the skilled workers have either retired or relocated, its time to reestablish the manufacturing base and workforce to reverse the current deplorable conditions of Baltimore and similar cities.
If it can be done here, the blueprint would be available for our other once great cities.
Rouse and Company gave us the model for urban redevelopment 50 yrs ago.
Maybe its time to try it again, based on manufacturing, not just retail and housing.
There are so many positive externalities with this approach.
Is there a better alternative to stop the further rot and by default give up on half the country?
Hmmm….Maybe getting the Francis Scott Key (went kaput in 2024) repaired/redone before 2030 should be a priority to enable the industrial manufacturing?
The Francis Scott Key Bridge has not been repaired; instead, a complete rebuild is currently underway. Expected Completion: The bridge is anticipated to open to traffic in late 2030.
There are many videos of how China builds/repairs bridge, over land and water in mere days to a few months, to less than a handful of years.
And Baltimore can’t rebuild FSK bridge sooner rather than later because why…..?
You can be sure they will have enough people to do the work.
Winds of change is rolling across the USA. Think about those kids working at burger joint starbucks or anyother service job hearing about 50 to 100 dollar an hour, and apprenticeships starting 30 to 40 an hour, not to mention the benefits. They will be coming out of the woodwork. Things are changing.
The negative attitude about the young should change, look at a college football game look at the stands. And all of them will be looking for work and opportunity.
Stop the negative you are parreting the propaganda media (tv).
The “Enemedia” is burying every single favorable economic story regarding this administration in an effort to advance the Dumocrat “affordability” narrative.
God bless President Trump. There hasn’t been a president like him since Washington or Lincoln.
The greatest generation during World War 2 –
1
The Great War Factories Of WWII America | War Factories Complete Series
2
_How the US Navy went from 6,700 Ships to just 300_
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/how-the-us-navy-went-from-6-700-ships-to-just-300/vi-AA1GG1ta?
3 –
WW2 factory school – 50,000 students
https://x.com/i/status/2013449884402110946
4
How the US Navy Built 100 Aircraft Carriers In Just 3 Years
Combine the President’s vote of confidence in the renewal of a great American work ethic with the speech made by Sec. of State Rubio in Greece, with the Parthenon in the background, about the competitive desire to be the best and spur competition, I see the new Golden Age taking shape
What will likely happen is that you’ll see skilled workers from all across America applying for those good shipyard jobs. If the local libbies and their ghetto pets get in the way, they’re going to get stepped on.
Does anyone know whether the governor of Maryland or the mayor of. Baltimore was at the speech?
Why put the investment into deep blue Maryland?
President Trump continues to impress and amaze me. I love this man. Bless him!