Strengthening maritime dominance in defense of our nation
With funding from the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DoD) Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment (IBAS) program office and in collaboration with the U.S. Navy, the SecureAmerica Institute has launched the Shipbuilding Regional Industrialization Pilot (SHIP) to address the alarming supply chain workforce gaps in the shipbuilding industry.
SHIP leverages industry, education and government stakeholders at a regional level to develop and provide regionally specific opportunities to build a skilled manufacturing workforce for the industrial base throughout the nation. Through this strategic program, SHIP will be the spark to reignite and reimagine manufacturing to help ensure a strong defense industrial base for the U.S.
This program simultaneously supports the near-term and future needs for shipbuilding manufacturers to remain competitive. SHIP emphasizes the importance of establishing regional workforce offerings that address and deliver the following validated needs within the community:
- The rallying of the community of interest and stakeholders around a common goal to empower the nation to meet impending demand for future production in the shipbuilding sector.
- A unified and data-informed, relationship-driven roadmap to set the stage for prioritized actions that can be taken now to systematically address critical gaps.
- Targeted quick wins identified early in the pilot program to provide momentum on a long-term strategic playbook to be developed.
Solving local problems to meet national demand
SHIP is using a hub-and-spoke model to coordinate between national strategy and regional/local implementation. The regional implementation will be coordinated using regional champions – individuals able to identify and rally key stakeholders that span the full ecosystem i.e., federal, state and local government bodies, academia, regional industries, current and future workforce, and local community. This group will be empowered with data, analysis and tools developed for the SHIP program to fund and drive targeted initiatives based on local needs to meet national demand.
As part of the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, SHIP positions communities — and future generations — to develop, augment and advance their part of the defense industrial base with regional workforce offerings and new technologies to meet DoD demand.
Regional Champions
