With a stop at BAE Systems Ship Repair’s in-house training center, Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Norfolk, chatted with 7 shipyard apprentices about Navy ship repair needs that she can take back to her colleagues in Congress.
Nearing the end of the House of Representative’s two-week district work break, Luria followed up a series of meetings on the Eastern Shore with a stop Thursday just outside her district for a first-hand look at a Hampton Roads economic engine: ship repair.
“I’m very interested today to tour the Gettysburg and the Vicksburg,” the Navy veteran said, referring to the two guided missile cruisers that BAE is modernizing and that the Pentagon has talked about retiring in the past. Luria’s 20 year career as a surface warfare officer included service on six ships.
“We talk a lot of about the future force structure of our Navy and the status of our cruisers, and I felt it was very important to get eyes on and see how the work was progressing,” she said.
Paul Smith, BAE vice president and general manager of the Norfolk yard, said he wanted to hear about the Navy’s long-term maintenance needs and hoped to stress the importance of predictability in funding and scheduling Navy ship repair work.
“The number one thing I hear from everyone in the shipbuilding and ship repair business across Hampton Roads is the need for predictability,” Luria said.
She said in addition to pushing for more funding for ship repair, she wants Congress to give clearer direction to the Navy about the need to allocate funds and maintain work schedules for ship repair yards.
Smith said he wanted to show Luria BAE’s apprentice program, which trains employees in welding, pipefitting, sheet metal work and the indoor and outdoor machinist trades with a mix of Tidewater Community College courses and hands-on experience working alongside longtime skilled workers. There are 61 apprentices enrolled in the four year program.
The challenges shipyards face recruiting and retaining skilled workers is one reason why industry executives talk so much about the need for predictability, to avoid the layoffs of the past that saw so many shipbuilders leave the business to seek steadier work.
Helping shipyards find the skilled workers they need “is something we talk about frequently in Congress. … We want to provide the workforce skilled training programs that can provide qualified trades to the shipyards,” Luria said.
Earlier this week, Luria had briefings on the Eastern Shore of Virginia Broadband Authority’s efforts to expand its network in rural Accomack and Northampton counties, and talked with Cape Charles farmers Steve and Kyle Sturgis about their year-round hydroponic vegetable-growing operation and the challenges they face connecting with supermarkets and military commissaries and ship supply departments.
At the Eastville Community Health Center, Luria said she wanted to link the clinic with the Hampton Veterans Administration medical center, to make it easier for veterans living on the Eastern Shore to get care.
She was briefed about the center’s 400-shots-a-day COVID-19 vaccination and its outreach effort to bring patients back for care they deferred during the height of the pandemic in two of the hardest-hit counties in Virginia.
The center’s visits have been running 12% below year ago levels, Eastern Shore Rural Health System chief executive Matt Clay told her.
Dr. Tom Hollandsworth, the center’s medical director, said the first outreach efforts are focused on children and on others with chronic conditions, such as high blood pressure. He’s hoping to get people back on a routine of regular preventative checkups as quickly as possible.
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