Organizational Announcement

Published June 21, 2022

Dear Shipbuilders,

For nearly 40 years, Rick Spaulding has been an integral member of our HII family, serving at both the Newport News and Ingalls shipyards, as well as at the HII corporate office. It is with mixed emotion that I announce his upcoming retirement on July 1.

Since 2019, Rick has served on my senior leadership team as vice president of Business Process Standardization, where he was responsible for the implementation of program and production standards across the division as well as the acceleration of digital shipbuilding and other key business functions. He also led efforts to share best practices across all HII shipyards, and in 2021 he took on a special assignment to oversee HII corporate program operations.

During his tenure, he has supported construction for nearly all of the U.S. Navy’s current fleet, to include aircraft carriers and submarines, amphibious warships and large surface combatants, as well as U.S. Coast Guard national security cutters.

Rick joined NNS after graduating from the University of Michigan in 1983 with a bachelor’s degree in naval architecture and marine engineering. He spent the next 25 years in our Planning organization supporting submarine design and planning, steel manufacturing, naval and commercial ship repair, commercial ship construction, planning, scheduling, labor resource, capacity and capital planning. He held various positions of increasing responsibility, including director of Central Planning, before sharing his knowledge and expertise with our sister shipyard. In 2008, he was named vice president of Central Planning and Process Excellence for Ingalls Shipbuilding, where he led planning efforts for their product lines until his return to NNS in 2019.

While every retirement is bittersweet, our shipyard is stronger because of Rick. His retirement is well deserved, and I am very happy to support him on his next chapter. Please join me in thanking and congratulating Rick on his distinguished service and legacy of “Always Good Ships.”

Respectfully,
Jennifer Boykin
President
Newport News Shipbuilding