Ingalls Shipbuilding, Pascagoula, Miss.

Ingalls Shipbuilding division of Northrop-Grumman [purchased from Litton Industries] is a leading systems company for the design, engineering, construction, life cycle and fleet support, repair and modernization of surface combatant ships for the US Navy and international navies, and for commercial marine structures of all types. Located in Pascagoula, and in continuous operation since 1938, Ingalls is Mississippi's largest private employer.

On July 13, 2010 Northrop Grumman Corporation announced plans to consolidate its Gulf Coast shipbuilding operations and explore strategic alternatives for its Shipbuilding business. Ship construction at Avondale will wind down in 2013. Future LPD-class ships will be built in a single production line at the company's Pascagoula, Miss. facility. The company anticipated some opportunities in Pascagoula for Avondale shipbuilders who wish to relocate. As a result of the consolidation, the company expects higher costs to complete ships currently under construction in Avondale due to anticipated reductions in productivity and, as a result, is increasing the estimates to complete LPDs 23 and 25 by approximately $210 million. Of this amount $113 million will be recognized as a one-time, pre-tax cumulative charge to Shipbuilding's second quarter 2010 operating income. The balance will be recognized as lower margin in future periods, principally on the LPD 25. The company also anticipates that it will incur substantial restructuring and facilities shutdown-related costs including, but not limited to, severance, relocation expense, and asset write-downs. These costs are expected to be allowable expenses under government accounting standards and recoverable in future years under the company's contracts. The company estimates that these restructuring costs will be more than offset by future savings expected to be generated by the consolidation.

Ingalls has built a wide variety of commercial ships and other structures over the years, including- seagoing hopper dredges, oil tankers, tow-boats, offshore cargo vessels and oil supply boats, and roll on/roll off container ships. In the early 1950s the company redirected segments of its shipbuilding capabilities from producing commercial vessels to producing ships for the US Navy's combatant fleet. In 1957, Ingalls received its first submarine construction contract, and the Company produced a total of 12 nuclear-powered attack submarines for the Navy. By the time the shipyard's nuclear facility was decommissioned in 1980, 11 US Navy attack submarines had been overhauled and/or refueled at Ingalls.

Ingalls is located where the Pascagoula River flows into the Mississippi Sound, strategically positioned for easy acces to the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Ingalls Shipbuilding is a division of Litton Industries; the yard is also a Litton Ship Systems company. Pascagoula serves as the headquarters for Litton Ship System. This small rural Mississippi town is home of not only Ingalls but also the Litton ship Systems Full Service Center.

The name "Pascagoula" comes from the Indian word meaning "bread eaters" because the Pascagoula tribe, unlike many others raised corn, ground it into meal, and made bread. A French naval officer, Pierre Lemoyne D'Iberville, arrived in Pascagoula in the summer of 1699 and was cordially received by the Pascagoula Indians and a small tribe of Moss Point Indians, known as the Mohocti. The Pascagoula Tribe consisted of thirty warriors, Indians and Creoles, including the descendants of a small band of French Canadians who arrived in 1634. In 1718, the lands of Pascagoula Bay were conceded to Madame Chaumont, a French woman of fortune. The same year Joseph Simon de La Pointe built home on Krebs Lake which is known today as the Old Spanish Fort. It is the oldest building now standing in Mississippi. In the cemetery which adjoins this building are the graves of early settlers whose tombstones are inscribed in French and dated as early as 1732. Pascagoula was part of a French province from early 1699 to 1763, owned by the English from 1763 to 1781, a Spanish Territory from 1781 to 1798, finally, became a part of the United States on June 7, 1798. Pascagoula was incorporated as a village in 1892. In 1904, Pascagoula and Scranton, a village which had sprung up around the Railroad Station, were combined and incorporated as the City of Pascagoula.

Use of the Pascagoula River initiated soon after the Civil War. Longleaf yellow pine and cypress were floated down the river to schooners waiting in the Gulf of Mexico. Pascagoula's neighboring town, Moss Point, utilized the lumber transportation by river and became the site of a thriving sawmill industry. Later in the 19th Century Pascagoula was second only to Mobile, Alabama in lumber exports on the Gulf Coast. Then, in the 20th Century the lumber trade in Pascagoula changed: Moss Point became the primary town for lumber - International Paper Company thrives there today - and Pascagoula changed its focus primarily to shipbuilding.

Shipbuilding in Pascagoula started to boom from 1917 to 1918. World War I instigated new activity on the shores of Pascagoula. In 1938, Ingalls was well-established just in time for the Second World War. And, the wartime demand made the shipyard's production increase so much that people from all over Mississippi and western Tennessee flocked there in order to find jobs. During the Cold War years, business remained sufficient thanks to governmental contracts. The shipyard had always thrived on producing ships for commercial use too, but in the early 1950s the company diversified its yard to support the production of United States naval combatant ships. Later that decade, in 1957, Ingalls won a contract with the US Navy for the construction of 12 nuclear-powered attack submarines.

California-based Litton Industries acquired Ingalls in December 1961. In January 1968 Ingalls Shipbuilding began construction of a new shipyard on a 611-acre tract of land across the Pascagoula River from the Company's existing facilities, developed around the newly-developed modular ship production concept. Since 1975, Ingalls has delivered 76 new major surface warships to the US Navy, including amphibious assault ships, submarine tenders, destroyers, ammunition ships, as well as nuclear submarines. Ingalls has built SPRUANCE (DD 963) Class multimission destroyers, TARAWA (LHA 1) Class general purpose amphibious assault ships, KIDD (DDG 993) Class guided missile destroyers and TICONDEROGA (CG 47) Class Aegis guided missile cruisers.

Ingalls reached all time high employment levels of 25,000 in 1977, and currently employs 10,900. Ingalls maintains Collective Bargaining Agreements with the Pascagoula Metal Trades Council (comprised of unions representing boilermakers, operating engineers, sheetmetal workers, pipefitters, carpenters, painters, laborers, machinists and teamsters), as well as separate unions representing electrical workers (IBEW), office employees and security guards.

Since the 1950s Ingalls has also been in the drilling rig construction business. Ingalls continues to produce these rigs at an impressive rate. In the 1980s Ingalls constructed many commercial ships some of which include 13 jackup drilling rigs, 4 submersible drilling rigs, and a self-unloading cement barge. The yard has also produced thousands of railroad hopper cars over the years. In 1996 alone Ingalls delivered 40 hopper barges to Parker Towing Company of Tuscaloosa, AL. On March 12, 1998 Ingalls signed a contract with Zentech of Houston. This contract allowed the yard to market a design for a new state-of-the-art deepwater jackup drilling rig which has been and will be continued to be used for the many drilling rig assignments at Ingalls. On April 9, 1998 Ingalls signed a contract with SEAREX, Inc. of Mandeville, LA. The contract was worth more than $30 million and requested that Ingalls build four multipurpose offshore service jackup vessels. Each of the four vessels will be 165 feet long with a 140-foot beam and will have 260-foot jackup legs enabling the ship to operate in water up to 180 feet deep. The first of the four, Trident Crusader, was delivered on July 27, 1999. The yard also has contracts in other commercial and offshore markets. Ingalls designs and constructs cruise ships as well as performs construction, outfitting, repair and overhaul of drilling rigs.

In 1977 Congress passed the US Flag Cruiseship Pilot Project Statute. The statute eventually resulted in Project America, a project signed on March 9, 1999 by Ingalls. The project will include the modernization of the US-Flag oceangoing cruise ship fleet. This project includes the creation of more than 5000 American jobs, modernization of the US shipbuilding industrial base, an increase in revenue, a boost to tourism in Hawaii, and expansion of leisure travel as well as a chance for the US shipbuilding efforts to reenter this illustrious market. Project America specifically includes a contract between Ingalls and American Classic Voyages Company (AMCV) where Ingalls will build two 1900-passanger cruise ships with an option of a third. The first of these ships will be the first large, luxury cruise ships built in the US in 40 years.

Though full of domestic contracts, Ingalls has spread itself internationally. Being the sole US shipyard to provide new construction surface combatants to an international customer, the shipyard has delivered SA'AR 5 Class of corvettes to the Israeli Navy. In December 1997 Ingalls signed a $315 million contract with the government of Venezuela for a project that would include the overhaul and modernization of the two Venezuelan Armada frigates Mariscal Sucre (F 21) and Almirante Brion (F 22). These ships, prepared for antiair, antisurface, and antisubmarine warfare missions, are 2500-ton LUPO class frigates that were initially in service in Venezuela in 1980 and 1982, respectively. The project has occupied, at peak work efforts, as many as 1000 Ingalls employees and is still under contract.

Some of Ingalls most recent endeavors include a study contract in August 1999 for the first phase of the Navy's new T-AKE-1 Lewis and Clark [initially known as the T-ADC(X) Program]. This program includes a new auxiliary cargo class of combat logistics force ships intended to replace the US Navy's dry stores and ammunition ships that are soon to be at the end of their commission. The preliminary plan included construction of 12 auxiliary cargo ships over the next 6 years; this is a project that will total a $5 billion value.

Currently, Ingalls is under contract for the construction of Arliegh Burke (DDG 51) Class Aegis guided missile destroyers and Wasp (LHD 1) Class multipurpose amphibious assault ships. Number 20 and 21 of the class Aegis guided missile destroyers to be constructed for the US Navy by Ingalls were awarded to the yard on December 11, 1998, including a contract of $620 million. A year later, December 1999, Ingalls was awarded a contract to build 2 additional DDG Class Aegis guided missile destroyers for the US Navy to total 23 Aegis destroyers under firm contract. On January 23, 1999, the USS Roosevelt (DDG 80) was christened at Ingalls in honor of the great works of 32nd US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. This was the first Flight-IIA Aegis Destroyer to come from the hulls of Ingalls. In November 1999 one of the newest US Navy Destroyers, USS Lassen (DDG-82), was christened in honor of Commander Clyde Everett Lassen. Lassen earned a Congressional Medal of Honor for his courageous rescue in Vietnam.

By mid-2002 the Pentagon was close to reaching an agreement with Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics to swap the workload on the USS Arleigh Burke (DDG-51)-class Flight IIA destroyers and the San Antonio (LPD-17)-class amphibious transports. The plan would consolidate Flight IIA Arleigh Burke construction at GD's Bath Iron Works facility in Maine, with Northrop Grumman's Avondale shipyard in Mississippi focusing on getting the first ships in the LPD-17 class delivered to the Navy. Under the plan four of the LPD-17s to be built by GD's Bath Iron Works would be swapped for four DDG-51s scheduled for construction at Northrop Grumman's Ingalls shipyard. The plan is intended to minimize the risks on both programs [DDG-51 and LPD-17] and minimize the risks to the Navy in terms of cost and performance.

In June 1998, teaming arrangements under which two competing total ship concepts and designs will be produced for DD 21, the Navy's 21st Century destroyer, were established. Ingalls and Raytheon Systems Company form one team; with Bath Iron Works partnering with Lockheed Martin Corporation to form the second team.

In September 2000, Egypt signed a letter of intent with a consortium of Lockheed Martin Undersea, Ingalls and RDM (a Dutch company) to build two Dutch "Moray" class submarines. The subs will be built at the Ingalls facility in Mississippi. Egypt requested a waiver to use foreign military financing (FMF) grant funds to build these submarines and the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) approved the waiver in principle.

The Navy announced 09 November 2000 that Ingalls Shipbuilding would repair USS Cole (DDG 67), which was damaged in a 12 October 2000 terrorist attack while in the port of Aden, Yemen. The decision followed a thorough review of the capabilities, costs and schedules associated with public and private shipyards, and included an assessment of how the selection would impact Cole Sailors and their families. Ingalls Shipbuilding was determined to be the shipyard best suited to make repairs to Cole. Cole's industrial availability was scheduled to begin in January 2001 and was expected to take about one year to complete. In assessing the overall capability of shipyards, Ingalls was deemed most able to effectively manage and complete the work identified in a timely fashion. It was determined that Ingalls can handle any additional work identified during the repair process while also meeting Navy desires to minimize impact on the ship's crew. A major factor in determining where repairs were made was congressional language in proposed legislation that would provide funding for Cole repairs. This underscores the Navy's commitment to ensuring the welfare of Cole crew and families. The selection of Ingalls will allow most of the work to be done by civilian workers experienced in building this type of ship.