Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) said Monday it has appointed Brandi Smith as program director for the U.S. Navy’s Columbia-class submarine program at the company’s Newport News Shipbuilding division.
There was no incumbent Columbia program director at HII, according to a Tuesday email from a spokesperson for the shipbuilding subcontractor for the Navy’s next nuclear-armed ballistic-missile submarine fleet. Huntington Ingalls only recently created the job for Smith, who in her new role is responsible “for leading the company’s construction activities” on Columbia, “as well as maintaining strong relationships with General Dynamics Electric Boat and Navy customers.”
Smith was most recently HII’s director of quality control, where she was “responsible for all nuclear, non-nuclear, and non-destructive testing inspectors,” the company said in a press release. Smith will report to Jason Ward, Newport News vice president for Columbia-class submarine construction.
Huntington Ingalls builds major ballistic submarine modules, such as bows and sterns, under contract to General Dynamics. The prime is responsible for final assembly of the boats.
Huntington Ingalls promoted Smith with Columbia prime General Dynamics Electric Boat buckling down to preserve its margins on the first boat after subcontractor BWXT Technologies improperly welded 12 missile tubes intended for use on the next-generation subs. In December, Vice Adm. Johnny Wolfe, the Navy’s director of strategic systems programs, said GD still had margin to deliver the first Columbia by 2031.
The Navy plans to replace 14 Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarines with 12 Columbia-class boats beginning in 2031. The new fleet will be built at the General Dynamics Electric Boat’s shipyards in Groton, Conn.
Like the Ohio-class fleet, Columbia will carry Trident II-D5 missiles made by Lockheed Martin and tipped with a mixture of W88 and W76 nuclear warheads provided by the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. According to the civilian agency, a “small” number of the W76 warheads will be of the low-yield W76-2 variety.
The NNSA finished building the W76-2 warheads in fiscal 2019, agency Adminsitrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty said last week during a breakfast speech in Washington. Congress authorized the NNSA to continue delivering the weapons to the Navy this year.
