Naval battles
The Virginia-class attack submarine precommissioning unit (PCU) North Dakota (SSN-784) has departed General Dynamics Electric Boat’s indoor shipyard facility in Groton, Connecticut. North Dakota is scheduled to be christened Nov. 2. (U.S. Navy photo courtesy of General Dynamics/Released)
WASHINGTON — The Navy has invested $500 million so far in working with Texas-based nonprofit Blue Forge Alliance to bolster the submarine industrial base, and that investment is likely to continue to grow, according to Navy officials leading the effort.
“We are investing $605 million in supplier development. [funding] In [fiscal year 2024] “It’s a national security supplement, and we’re going to be working on these projects through Blue Forge,” Matt Salmon, executive director of the Strategic Submarine Program Executive Office, told reporters during a June 6 roundtable discussion at Naval Sea Systems Command.
The nonprofit was founded in November 2022 by two engineers who worked at Texas A&M University and has quickly made a name for itself in recent months for working with the U.S. Navy and General Dynamics Electric Boat to help bolster the submarine industrial base, primarily in preparation for the strategic security agreement known as AUKUS.
To the public, the effort manifests itself as a website, BuildSubmarines.com, which aims to communicate the Navy’s need for 100,000 new workers over 10 years — more people for the workforce. BlueForge has placed billboards and advertisements at high-profile events like opening day of the Major League Baseball season, NASCAR races and the Academy Awards.
BlueForge Alliance did not respond to requests for comment or an interview by press time.
Salmon was one of the first Navy officials to start talking publicly about Blue Forge Alliance at the annual trade show last November, saying the organization’s founders, Kylie Wren and Rob Gorham, first approached the service as a result of working with Texas A&M University.
The future founders of BlueForge proposed a supplier and workforce development pilot program to Electric Boat and the Navy, which Electric Boat then approved and BlueForge made the sole decision to execute the program.
“They did a very good job. They demonstrated that they were adding capability to the shipbuilding group,” Salmon added. “That was the beginning of this project.”
Salmon said Blue Forge’s work has since expanded to lead a multi-university additive manufacturing consortium as well as partner with select OEMs and additive manufacturing companies, “bringing together a whole group of industry and academia into an organization that’s focused on the maturity of the materials that we need to drive.”
