As Austal USA’s final Littoral Combat Ship takes shape, a top company executive says the shipyard is on the verge of a huge growth surge. 🚢
“Austal has moved from one customer to six,” Austal USA President Rusty Murdaugh, as the company announcing a job fair and hiring surge. “We’ve moved from building two types of ships to 13.”
Larry Ryder, Austal USA’s vice president for business development and external affairs, speaks at the christening of a Littoral Combat Ship in December.“I think we topped out at about 4,600 or so, previously,” he said. “This will put us over 5,000 on the current plans we have now, the current backlog.”
It’s not that long ago, Ryder acknowledged, that “We were trying find out how we can prevent laying 1,000-plus people off.” “We’ve got a bit of a challenge on infrastructure with the I-10 bridge, we’re going to lose a plot of land we were intending to put a building on,” he said. “We’re working with ALDOT and the state to try to resolve that.”
One slightly poignant aspect of all this is that aluminum shipbuilding work, once Austal USA’s bread and butter, has uncertain prospects at the moment. There are two more LCSs to deliver, and the remaining EPFs and the Expeditionary Medical Ships will be aluminum. But the majority of the new work is in steel.
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