Celebrating Silent Servants of the Silent Service
Guest Appearance
By
Admiral James G. Foggo, U.S. Navy (Ret.)
December 17, 2025
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Thank you for allowing me to speak with you today. I am excited to share insights about a remarkable opportunity in the manufacturing and technical fields—an opportunity that not only offers rewarding careers but also helps meet the growing demand for skilled professionals in the submarine industrial base and the broader maritime industrial base across the nation.
I made the trip from Washington, DC today, where I am the Dean of the Center for Maritime Strategy of the Navy League of the United States, because I am passionate about the work that President Telly Tucker is accomplishing here at the Institute of Advanced Learning and Research every day!
I’m also grateful to the state of Virginia, my state of residence since 1968, and the industry partners like Blue Forge Alliance, the AUSTAL Corporation, the Spectrum Group, and the Phillips Corporation for their support in sustaining the Accelerated Training in Defense Manufacturing (ATDM) and Additive Manufacturing facilities here on the campus of the Danville Community College.
Moreover, I am grateful to each and every one of you in today’s graduating class for the skillsets you have mastered and the service you are about to bring to bear in support of our Submarine and Maritime Industrial Base.
I spent 40 years on active duty as a submarine officer. They call us the “Silent Service” because under the sea, the stealth and quieting of these magnificent submarines is a matter of survival.
Maintaining this survivability is part responsibility of the Sailors onboard, but equally the responsibility of people like you, who are going to build, maintain, and repair these boats during a 30–40-year life cycle.
So YOU—our graduates today—represent the Silent Servants Who Support the Silent Service and for that, I am forever grateful!
Now let’s examine how you got here today. We’ll start by looking at the broader picture. Since its inception in June 2021, the Accelerated Targeted Defense Manufacturing (ATDM) program has proudly supported multiple cohorts of students, with a total graduation rate of 80% through the latest graduating class. This demonstrates not only the effectiveness of our training but also the commitment of both students and instructors alike.
In the year 2025 alone, over 600 individuals enrolled in ATDM programs, seeking to develop skills in some of the most vital areas of manufacturing and technical work. These sectors are experiencing a significant boom, with industries demanding highly trained professionals who can operate advanced equipment, uphold quality standards, and innovate within their fields.
This Academy of manufacturing offers five specialized program tracks:
Each of these tracks is designed to equip students with the hands-on experience and industry-recognized credentials needed to excel in today’s competitive job market.
Now why is this important? Well, I’ll tell you why based on my experience as a naval officer for the past 40 years, but first a little background on me… You see I am a Cold War submariner who interviewed for the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program with ADM Hyman G. Rickover. He was the longest serving Admiral in the history of our nation—60 years on active duty and 30 of those years as a Flag Officer. My 40-year career, 11 of which I served as a Flag Officer, pales in comparison.
Born in Makov, Poland, in 1900, Rickover was just six years old when he immigrated to the U.S. with his family to escape Russian pogroms. His father, Abraham Rickover supported the family as a tailor in Chicago while his mother ran the household.
He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1922 and later earned an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University. He served for over 63 years in the United States Navy. He was promoted to Flag Rank in 1953 and remained an Admiral for almost 30 years before retiring in 1982. That, ladies and gentlemen, is unprecedented! He received two Congressional Gold Medals and was the longest-serving U.S. military officer in the history of our nation!
Admiral Rickover touched many lives during his 60 years career, including those of future presidents of the United States like Jimmy Carter. As you know, President Carter passed away earlier this year at the age of 100. I probably would not have attended the Naval Academy if it were not for President Carter, so I want to tell you a quick Sea Story about the Rickover – Carter relationship.
This story starts in 1975 when I was entering my senior year at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Northern Virginia and I decided that I wanted to go to the United States Naval Academy. Accordingly, I had a thirst for everything and anything written about the Academy.
The year 1976 was an election year and this relatively unknown peanut farmer and Governor of the great state of Georgia was running for President. His name was Jimmy Carter and he wrote a book to launch his campaign. I was struck by the title, “Why Not the Best?” and so I bought a copy of the book read it cover to cover. (HOLD UP BOOK).
As most of you probably know, despite the fact that this was Jimmy Carter’s “launch my campaign for the Presidency book”, the main premise was based on LTjg Carter’s interview with Admiral Rickover for the nuclear propulsion program.
Having graduated in the class of 1946 and served in the fleet onboard the battleship USS Wyoming, LTjg Carter was interviewed with by Captain Rickover in 1952.
Jimmy Carter’s interview was a little different than my interview with Four Star Admiral Rickover 29 years later. In 1952, Rickover let Carter pick the subjects about which he knew the most: current events, seamanship, music, literature, naval tactics, electronic, and gunnery.
Rickover picked up the list and started asking questions of increasing difficulty on all of these subjects. By Carter’s own admission, Captain Rickover quickly proved that Jimmy Carter really didn’t know anything about any of those subjects. Quite frankly folks, I had a similar experience with the Admiral.
At this point, Carter was becoming very uncomfortable. He said Rickover looked right into his eyes and never smiled. Carter was saturated with cold sweat.
Finally, Rickover asked Carter a question he COULD answer. He said, “How did you stand in your class at the Naval Academy?”
Carter, having completed two years at Georgia Tech before entering Annapolis said, “Sir, I was 59th in a class of 820!” He sat back and waited for Rickover to say WELL DONE, but that didn’t happen.
Instead, Rickover asked a simple question: “Did you do your best?”
Impulsively, Carter’s tongue started to engage and then his brain took over. Just remember who you are talking to he reminded himself, so he swallowed and said, “No sir… I did not always do my best.”
Rickover maintained a cold gaze at Jimmy Carter for a long time, then he swiveled his chair 180 degrees away from the candidate to terminate the interview and asked one last question in a loud voice: “WHY NOT?”
Carter, sat there for a moment, somewhat shaken and then slowly walked out of the room defeated. Perhaps it was due to his stellar record or his candor or his humility—I don’t know–but in the final analysis, Jimmy Carter was selected by Captain Rickover for the nuclear power program.
By his own admission, the Rickover interview and that fateful question was a defining moment in young LTJg Carter’s life, so much so that he made it the title of his autobiography: “Why Not the Best?”
So graduates, I’m going to ask you the same question right now… While you were here, did you do your best?
You don’t have to answer the question for me… rather answer it for yourself… because you are about to embark on a career where the highest standards of excellence are the norm, whether it be in the welding shop, on the waterfront, during non-destructive testing and certification of materials or assessing a SUBSAFE part for quality assurance standards.
The continuity of operations of our Fleet and the safety of our most precious commodity—our Sailors—will soon be in your hands!
If the answer to my question is YES, you did your best, then good on you! If your honest answer is NO, I did not do my best, then like President Jimmy Carter, you know what to do and I’m counting on you to do it.
Okay, now let’s shift gears and talk about what it’s like to go to sea for six months with 130 shipmates in a tube that is 293 feet long, 33 feet in diameter, and with a height of 55 feet, made of HY-80 which stands for a High Yield Strength metal alloy rated to withstand 80,000 psi of pressure.
That, ladies and gents, describes my first boat, the USS SEA DEVIL (SSN-664). The Commanding Officer, CDR Rich Mies eventually retired as a Four-Star Admiral after serving as Commander US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) and Commander United States Submarine Force, Atlantic (COMSULBANT).
Admiral Mies served as my mentor then and even today in retirement. He was a great Skipper and he ran a tight ship.
So it gave me great satisfaction to be a Junior Officer on CDR Mies’s boat and then graduate myself from Perspective Commanding Officer school when Admiral Mies was COMSUBLANT. Upon graduation, Admiral Mies presented each Prospective Commanding Officer this little plaque. On it, it says, “Oh God, thy sea is so great and my ship is so small.”
We were told that Admiral Rickover started this tradition for the first group of nuclear trained submarine Commanding Officers. This little plaque is more than just a memento or a piece of wood. It is a cautionary tale and a solemn reminder that the power of the sea far exceeds the 165 MW that my boat’s nuclear reactor could generate and even more importantly, while you are out there in the big oceans of the world, you’re on your own!
Nobody is going to be there to help you or to save you. You rely on your shipmates and your own ingenuity to operate the boat, complete the mission, and return home safely. So in the event of equipment failure, it was important to be able to fix it yourself.
All that said, one of the things we kept in our “retention of Sailors kit” was the promise of good “schools” because every Sailor joins the Navy to see the world, but also to profit from a world class education, especially in the Nuclear Navy. In 1983, the most popular school for our nuclear trained electronic technicians was called “Micro-Miniature Repair”—a challenging course with a substantial attrition rate.
The schoolhouse employed the best Electronics Technicians in the Navy as instructors whose mission was to teach our sailors how to repair circuit boards in shipboard equipment. I can remember being at sea when a system failure occurred, whether it was in the nuclear propulsion plant electrical system, radio room, sonar room, or in the fire control system, and those sailors qualified to conduct microminiature repair went to work.
First they deenergized the equipment, commenced troubleshooting by opening up the system, half splitting the circuitry to isolate the fault to a particular circuit card or component and then locating appropriate parts to swap out capacitors, resistors, transistors, or diodes and then soldering them back into the system before putting the circuit card on a test bench and recertifying it for use.
I saw our guys do this many times while underway and performing critical missions to national security where the alternative of going into port for repairs would have been a mission kill. The bottom line is that investment in microminiature repair yielded fantastic results and it saved money!! Let me explain the latter…
What do we do today amidst the digital transformation of hardware and software on our ships deployed at sea? We either shut the equipment down for repair later in a depot maintenance facility ashore or we pull out an expensive black box and replace it with another black box. That implies that you carry the part (or the black box) onboard in supply. Many times we don’t.
For that reason, and specifically for complicated warfighting systems like the AEIGIS Combat System used on our Arleigh Burke-class DDGs—which by the way did the majority of the work shooting down Houthi missiles and protecting our ships and those of other nations in the Red Sea for the last two years—we created something called a PUK = a Pack-Up Kit—containing high failure rate parts that are stored in a location that is readily available to unplug a bad component and plug in a new one in order to keep fighting at sea.
This big change in how we do on-site repair of our ships started to change when I was the Commanding Officer of USS Oklahoma City—a nuclear powered fast-attack submarine. I professed that when we conducted troubleshooting and repair to find the fault, then we ought to pull out the black box, open it up and repair it on site.
My Supply Officer would throw a fit and say No Sir! You can’t do that! That part is a $100-, $200-, or $500-thousand-dollar part and it is a “Turn In” item. In other words, if you break the seal on that black box, you void the warranty and the US Government pays a huge penalty when you turn it in for a replacement. Nonsense in my humble opinion! But I chose not to fight city hall and just turned in the part for replacement when I returned to port.
Now if you think about this story in the context of what you learned here at ATDM, things are changing for the better. We are no longer throwing in the towel by tagging out components or machinery and declaring equipment “Out of Commission or OOC,” we are actually manufacturing replacement parts right here in Danville, and conducting repairs at sea. I envision the day when there is a 3D printer on every warship in the fleet and that day can’t come too soon! Sailors will once again be empowered to fix their own equipment at sea and live to fight another day. This is not just a readiness issue, it’s a warfighting issue!
Now, let’s take a closer look at some recent statistics to illustrate the impact of our programs.
For instance, as of December 12th, our 21st cohort includes students on target to graduate in each pathway:
– Additive Manufacturing: 11 students
– CNC Machining: 29 students
– Non-Destructive Testing: 18 students
These students are not just completing their training—they are on a clear trajectory toward meaningful careers. That means an enduring career path that can support a family and the best part—you don’t incur any debt for your training pipeline like so many of our college grads nowadays.
ATDM will exceed 1000 students trained with your class. The goal is to sustain 1000 graduates a year from here on out to support the enormous needs of our industrial base—140,000 workers in 10 years!
ATDM data shows that approximately 83% of these graduates will have job offers, reflecting strong relationships with employers eager to hire our graduates.
An important aspect of our student body is the diverse demographic. About 19% are active-duty military personnel, reservists, transitioning service members, or veterans, highlighting our commitment to supporting those who serve our country and wish to transition into civilian careers in manufacturing.
Furthermore, our reach extends across 18 states—including Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia—indicating the national significance and scalability of our program.
The bottom line is that the manufacturing sector is a cornerstone of economic growth and innovation. As technology advances, so does the need for skilled workers who can operate sophisticated machinery, conduct non-destructive testing to ensure safety and quality, and uphold rigorous standards in quality control.
President Trump highlighted this in his National Security Strategy released just last week. On the topic of Reviving Our Industrial Base, he said:
America requires a national mobilization to innovate powerful defenses at low cost, to produce the most capable and modern systems and munitions at scale, and to re-shore our defense industrial supply chains. IN particular, we must provide our warfighters with the full range of capabilities, ranging from low-cost weapons with the full range of capabilities to the most capable high-end systems necessary for a conflict with a sophisticated enemy.
I want to emphasize that what we do is more than just training; it’s about opening doors to fulfilling careers, supporting our economy, and strengthening our national security. ATDM and its graduates represent what our Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Daryl Caudle calls The Foundry that supports the Fleet and the Fight.
Some of our graduates might be right out of high school or vocational training, some may have college training, some may have military service under their belts already, but all should be considered part of the broader national security apparatus of the nations—so back to where I started—you graduates are the Silent Servants of the Silent Service! You don’t have to wear a uniform to serve the nation. You can contribute in many other ways and being a part of the manufacturing sector in the shipbuilding industry is one of them.
It will all come together for you when you are working in a shipyard and it comes to the day of commissioning a US Navy warship. As tradition would have it, upon commissioning and bestowing the official title of USS WARSHIP, the Commanding Officer will order his crew to “Bring this ship to life!” All of a sudden you will hear the whirring of turbines and motors, rotating and radiating on the ship’s radar masts, blowing of the ship’s whistle, and testing of all navigation and searchlights. It is a magnificent sight to see and every American should take pride in the quality and value of these platforms bring to our nation’s defense and YOU are going to be a central part of that!!
Together, we can build a stronger, more skilled workforce for the future.
Center for Maritime Strategy
By Admiral James G. Foggo, U.S. Navy (Ret.)
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Thank you for allowing me to speak with you today. I am excited to share insights about a remarkable opportunity in the manufacturing and technical fields—an opportunity that not only offers rewarding careers but also helps meet the growing demand for skilled professionals in the submarine industrial base and the broader maritime industrial base across the nation.
I made the trip from Washington, DC today, where I am the Dean of the Center for Maritime Strategy of the Navy League of the United States, because I am passionate about the work that President Telly Tucker is accomplishing here at the Institute of Advanced Learning and Research every day!
I’m also grateful to the state of Virginia, my state of residence since 1968, and the industry partners like Blue Forge Alliance, the AUSTAL Corporation, the Spectrum Group, and the Phillips Corporation for their support in sustaining the Accelerated Training in Defense Manufacturing (ATDM) and Additive Manufacturing facilities here on the campus of the Danville Community College.
Moreover, I am grateful to each and every one of you in today’s graduating class for the skillsets you have mastered and the service you are about to bring to bear in support of our Submarine and Maritime Industrial Base.
I spent 40 years on active duty as a submarine officer. They call us the “Silent Service” because under the sea, the stealth and quieting of these magnificent submarines is a matter of survival.
Maintaining this survivability is part responsibility of the Sailors onboard, but equally the responsibility of people like you, who are going to build, maintain, and repair these boats during a 30–40-year life cycle.
So YOU—our graduates today—represent the Silent Servants Who Support the Silent Service and for that, I am forever grateful!
Now let’s examine how you got here today. We’ll start by looking at the broader picture. Since its inception in June 2021, the Accelerated Targeted Defense Manufacturing (ATDM) program has proudly supported multiple cohorts of students, with a total graduation rate of 80% through the latest graduating class. This demonstrates not only the effectiveness of our training but also the commitment of both students and instructors alike.
In the year 2025 alone, over 600 individuals enrolled in ATDM programs, seeking to develop skills in some of the most vital areas of manufacturing and technical work. These sectors are experiencing a significant boom, with industries demanding highly trained professionals who can operate advanced equipment, uphold quality standards, and innovate within their fields.
This Academy of manufacturing offers five specialized program tracks:
– Additive Manufacturing
– CNC Machining
– Non-Destructive Testing
– Quality Control & Inspection
– Welding
Each of these tracks is designed to equip students with the hands-on experience and industry-recognized credentials needed to excel in today’s competitive job market.
Now why is this important? Well, I’ll tell you why based on my experience as a naval officer for the past 40 years, but first a little background on me… You see I am a Cold War submariner who interviewed for the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program with ADM Hyman G. Rickover. He was the longest serving Admiral in the history of our nation—60 years on active duty and 30 of those years as a Flag Officer. My 40-year career, 11 of which I served as a Flag Officer, pales in comparison.
Born in Makov, Poland, in 1900, Rickover was just six years old when he immigrated to the U.S. with his family to escape Russian pogroms. His father, Abraham Rickover supported the family as a tailor in Chicago while his mother ran the household.
He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1922 and later earned an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University. He served for over 63 years in the United States Navy. He was promoted to Flag Rank in 1953 and remained an Admiral for almost 30 years before retiring in 1982. That, ladies and gentlemen, is unprecedented! He received two Congressional Gold Medals and was the longest-serving U.S. military officer in the history of our nation!
Admiral Rickover touched many lives during his 60 years career, including those of future presidents of the United States like Jimmy Carter. As you know, President Carter passed away earlier this year at the age of 100. I probably would not have attended the Naval Academy if it were not for President Carter, so I want to tell you a quick Sea Story about the Rickover – Carter relationship.
This story starts in 1975 when I was entering my senior year at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Northern Virginia and I decided that I wanted to go to the United States Naval Academy. Accordingly, I had a thirst for everything and anything written about the Academy.
The year 1976 was an election year and this relatively unknown peanut farmer and Governor of the great state of Georgia was running for President. His name was Jimmy Carter and he wrote a book to launch his campaign. I was struck by the title, “Why Not the Best?” and so I bought a copy of the book read it cover to cover. (HOLD UP BOOK).
As most of you probably know, despite the fact that this was Jimmy Carter’s “launch my campaign for the Presidency book”, the main premise was based on LTjg Carter’s interview with Admiral Rickover for the nuclear propulsion program.
Having graduated in the class of 1946 and served in the fleet onboard the battleship USS Wyoming, LTjg Carter was interviewed with by Captain Rickover in 1952.
Jimmy Carter’s interview was a little different than my interview with Four Star Admiral Rickover 29 years later. In 1952, Rickover let Carter pick the subjects about which he knew the most: current events, seamanship, music, literature, naval tactics, electronic, and gunnery.
Rickover picked up the list and started asking questions of increasing difficulty on all of these subjects. By Carter’s own admission, Captain Rickover quickly proved that Jimmy Carter really didn’t know anything about any of those subjects. Quite frankly folks, I had a similar experience with the Admiral.
At this point, Carter was becoming very uncomfortable. He said Rickover looked right into his eyes and never smiled. Carter was saturated with cold sweat.
Finally, Rickover asked Carter a question he COULD answer. He said, “How did you stand in your class at the Naval Academy?”
Carter, having completed two years at Georgia Tech before entering Annapolis said, “Sir, I was 59th in a class of 820!” He sat back and waited for Rickover to say WELL DONE, but that didn’t happen.
Instead, Rickover asked a simple question: “Did you do your best?”
Impulsively, Carter’s tongue started to engage and then his brain took over. Just remember who you are talking to he reminded himself, so he swallowed and said, “No sir… I did not always do my best.”
Rickover maintained a cold gaze at Jimmy Carter for a long time, then he swiveled his chair 180 degrees away from the candidate to terminate the interview and asked one last question in a loud voice: “WHY NOT?”
Carter, sat there for a moment, somewhat shaken and then slowly walked out of the room defeated. Perhaps it was due to his stellar record or his candor or his humility—I don’t know–but in the final analysis, Jimmy Carter was selected by Captain Rickover for the nuclear power program.
By his own admission, the Rickover interview and that fateful question was a defining moment in young LTJg Carter’s life, so much so that he made it the title of his autobiography: “Why Not the Best?”
So graduates, I’m going to ask you the same question right now… While you were here, did you do your best?
You don’t have to answer the question for me… rather answer it for yourself… because you are about to embark on a career where the highest standards of excellence are the norm, whether it be in the welding shop, on the waterfront, during non-destructive testing and certification of materials or assessing a SUBSAFE part for quality assurance standards.
The continuity of operations of our Fleet and the safety of our most precious commodity—our Sailors—will soon be in your hands!
If the answer to my question is YES, you did your best, then good on you! If your honest answer is NO, I did not do my best, then like President Jimmy Carter, you know what to do and I’m counting on you to do it.
Okay, now let’s shift gears and talk about what it’s like to go to sea for six months with 130 shipmates in a tube that is 293 feet long, 33 feet in diameter, and with a height of 55 feet, made of HY-80 which stands for a High Yield Strength metal alloy rated to withstand 80,000 psi of pressure.
That, ladies and gents, describes my first boat, the USS SEA DEVIL (SSN-664). The Commanding Officer, CDR Rich Mies eventually retired as a Four-Star Admiral after serving as Commander US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) and Commander United States Submarine Force, Atlantic (COMSULBANT).
Admiral Mies served as my mentor then and even today in retirement. He was a great Skipper and he ran a tight ship.
So it gave me great satisfaction to be a Junior Officer on CDR Mies’s boat and then graduate myself from Perspective Commanding Officer school when Admiral Mies was COMSUBLANT. Upon graduation, Admiral Mies presented each Prospective Commanding Officer this little plaque. On it, it says, “Oh God, thy sea is so great and my ship is so small.”
We were told that Admiral Rickover started this tradition for the first group of nuclear trained submarine Commanding Officers. This little plaque is more than just a memento or a piece of wood. It is a cautionary tale and a solemn reminder that the power of the sea far exceeds the 165 MW that my boat’s nuclear reactor could generate and even more importantly, while you are out there in the big oceans of the world, you’re on your own!
Nobody is going to be there to help you or to save you. You rely on your shipmates and your own ingenuity to operate the boat, complete the mission, and return home safely. So in the event of equipment failure, it was important to be able to fix it yourself.
All that said, one of the things we kept in our “retention of Sailors kit” was the promise of good “schools” because every Sailor joins the Navy to see the world, but also to profit from a world class education, especially in the Nuclear Navy. In 1983, the most popular school for our nuclear trained electronic technicians was called “Micro-Miniature Repair”—a challenging course with a substantial attrition rate.
The schoolhouse employed the best Electronics Technicians in the Navy as instructors whose mission was to teach our sailors how to repair circuit boards in shipboard equipment. I can remember being at sea when a system failure occurred, whether it was in the nuclear propulsion plant electrical system, radio room, sonar room, or in the fire control system, and those sailors qualified to conduct microminiature repair went to work.
First they deenergized the equipment, commenced troubleshooting by opening up the system, half splitting the circuitry to isolate the fault to a particular circuit card or component and then locating appropriate parts to swap out capacitors, resistors, transistors, or diodes and then soldering them back into the system before putting the circuit card on a test bench and recertifying it for use.
I saw our guys do this many times while underway and performing critical missions to national security where the alternative of going into port for repairs would have been a mission kill. The bottom line is that investment in microminiature repair yielded fantastic results and it saved money!! Let me explain the latter…
What do we do today amidst the digital transformation of hardware and software on our ships deployed at sea? We either shut the equipment down for repair later in a depot maintenance facility ashore or we pull out an expensive black box and replace it with another black box. That implies that you carry the part (or the black box) onboard in supply. Many times we don’t.
For that reason, and specifically for complicated warfighting systems like the AEIGIS Combat System used on our Arleigh Burke-class DDGs—which by the way did the majority of the work shooting down Houthi missiles and protecting our ships and those of other nations in the Red Sea for the last two years—we created something called a PUK = a Pack-Up Kit—containing high failure rate parts that are stored in a location that is readily available to unplug a bad component and plug in a new one in order to keep fighting at sea.
This big change in how we do on-site repair of our ships started to change when I was the Commanding Officer of USS Oklahoma City—a nuclear powered fast-attack submarine. I professed that when we conducted troubleshooting and repair to find the fault, then we ought to pull out the black box, open it up and repair it on site.
My Supply Officer would throw a fit and say No Sir! You can’t do that! That part is a $100-, $200-, or $500-thousand-dollar part and it is a “Turn In” item. In other words, if you break the seal on that black box, you void the warranty and the US Government pays a huge penalty when you turn it in for a replacement. Nonsense in my humble opinion! But I chose not to fight city hall and just turned in the part for replacement when I returned to port.
Now if you think about this story in the context of what you learned here at ATDM, things are changing for the better. We are no longer throwing in the towel by tagging out components or machinery and declaring equipment “Out of Commission or OOC,” we are actually manufacturing replacement parts right here in Danville, and conducting repairs at sea. I envision the day when there is a 3D printer on every warship in the fleet and that day can’t come too soon! Sailors will once again be empowered to fix their own equipment at sea and live to fight another day. This is not just a readiness issue, it’s a warfighting issue!
Now, let’s take a closer look at some recent statistics to illustrate the impact of our programs.
For instance, as of December 12th, our 21st cohort includes students on target to graduate in each pathway:
– Additive Manufacturing: 11 students
– CNC Machining: 29 students
– Non-Destructive Testing: 18 students
These students are not just completing their training—they are on a clear trajectory toward meaningful careers. That means an enduring career path that can support a family and the best part—you don’t incur any debt for your training pipeline like so many of our college grads nowadays.
ATDM will exceed 1000 students trained with your class. The goal is to sustain 1000 graduates a year from here on out to support the enormous needs of our industrial base—140,000 workers in 10 years!
ATDM data shows that approximately 83% of these graduates will have job offers, reflecting strong relationships with employers eager to hire our graduates.
An important aspect of our student body is the diverse demographic. About 19% are active-duty military personnel, reservists, transitioning service members, or veterans, highlighting our commitment to supporting those who serve our country and wish to transition into civilian careers in manufacturing.
Furthermore, our reach extends across 18 states—including Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia—indicating the national significance and scalability of our program.
The bottom line is that the manufacturing sector is a cornerstone of economic growth and innovation. As technology advances, so does the need for skilled workers who can operate sophisticated machinery, conduct non-destructive testing to ensure safety and quality, and uphold rigorous standards in quality control.
President Trump highlighted this in his National Security Strategy released just last week. On the topic of Reviving Our Industrial Base, he said:
America requires a national mobilization to innovate powerful defenses at low cost, to produce the most capable and modern systems and munitions at scale, and to re-shore our defense industrial supply chains. IN particular, we must provide our warfighters with the full range of capabilities, ranging from low-cost weapons with the full range of capabilities to the most capable high-end systems necessary for a conflict with a sophisticated enemy.
I want to emphasize that what we do is more than just training; it’s about opening doors to fulfilling careers, supporting our economy, and strengthening our national security. ATDM and its graduates represent what our Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Daryl Caudle calls The Foundry that supports the Fleet and the Fight.
Some of our graduates might be right out of high school or vocational training, some may have college training, some may have military service under their belts already, but all should be considered part of the broader national security apparatus of the nations—so back to where I started—you graduates are the Silent Servants of the Silent Service! You don’t have to wear a uniform to serve the nation. You can contribute in many other ways and being a part of the manufacturing sector in the shipbuilding industry is one of them.
It will all come together for you when you are working in a shipyard and it comes to the day of commissioning a US Navy warship. As tradition would have it, upon commissioning and bestowing the official title of USS WARSHIP, the Commanding Officer will order his crew to “Bring this ship to life!” All of a sudden you will hear the whirring of turbines and motors, rotating and radiating on the ship’s radar masts, blowing of the ship’s whistle, and testing of all navigation and searchlights. It is a magnificent sight to see and every American should take pride in the quality and value of these platforms bring to our nation’s defense and YOU are going to be a central part of that!!
Together, we can build a stronger, more skilled workforce for the future.
Thank you for your time and attention today!
Keep chargin’ and God Bless