Mark Vandroff, a retired Navy captain and engineering duty officer, was installed last summer as CEO of Fincantieri Marinette Marine, shipbuilder of the U.S. Navy’s Freedom-class littoral combat ship and now the Constellation-class frigate. A former ship program manager, he…
Retooling the Workforce: U.S. Coast Guard’s Oldest Command Invites Infusion of New Talent
The 122-year-old U.S. Coast Guard Shipyard at Curtis Bay in Baltimore is a full-service shipyard and an integral part of the Coast Guard’s Surface Forces Logistics Center. Known simply as the yard, it has a growing workload as new classes…
From the Deck Plate of the Center for Maritime Strategy of the Navy League of the United States
Last week I was pleased to christen the Navy League of the United States’ new platform for naval thought and advocacy, the Center for Maritime Strategy. As first dean and plank owner, our voyage for sound maritime strategy begins with…
Connecting the Dots: Gulf-Based Naval Overwatch Helps Secure ‘A to B’ Commercial Shipping Transits
The Northern Indian Ocean region hosts some of the world’s most critical maritime trade routes. Sea lines of communication (SLOCs) crisscross the region, connecting East and West and linking key energy supplies from the Persian Gulf. The SLOCs pass through…
NATO’S Naval Mine Warfare Centre of Excellence Leverages Institutional Knowledge, Expertise
The NATO Naval Mine Warfare Centre of Excellence (NMW COE) in Ostend, Belgium, is NATO’s main source of expertise regarding all aspects of NMW, leveraging the collective knowledge and expertise from the entire NMW community in support of the alliance….
Developing The Workforce: Next-Generation Ships Will Be Built By Next-Generation Workers
U.S. shipyards are busy building the next generation of Navy ships and Coast Guard cutters. As the current workforce is retiring, and taking their skills and knowledge with them, the next generation of naval architects, naval engineers, tradesmen and technicians…
From Submarine to Mars Explorer, Discovery is this Navy Veteran’s Mission
When the Perseverance rover landed on Mars on Feb. 18, cheers and applause filled mission control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. In the crowd celebrating was Matt Wallace, who as a young naval submarine officer plied the…
Marines Evaluate New Unmanned Maritime Technologies at BALTOPS
Sailors and Marines worked together with unmanned technologies, never used before to conduct expeditionary mine countermeasures operations, during the recent Baltic Operations (BALTOPS) 2021 exercise in Germany. Tony Brescia, a systems engineer with the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division…
Advising for Growth: Coast Guard’s 5th District Monitors Massive Mid-Atlantic Maritime Expansion
The Port of Virginia is something of a little-understood region on the nation’s vast maritime map, and yet is one of the busiest, most strategically important ports in the nation. Located at Hampton Roads, it ranks seventh among North America’s…
Coast Guard, Partner Agencies Continue to Support Haiti Relief Efforts
MIAMI — Coast Guard and partner agency aircrews continue to respond to critically injured Haitian citizens by transporting them to a higher level of care in Port au Prince, Haiti, the Coast Guard 7th District said in an Aug. 19…



