Published August 2002

Northrop Grumman
to repair Shoup, pump money into economy

By Mike Benbow
Herald Business Editor

Northrop Grumman Corp. expects to spend nearly $6 million in Snohomish County this summer when it creates a highly secure new shipyard to repair bugs discovered in the new destroyer USS Shoup, which was recently stationed in Everett.

“We call it shipyard in a box,” Joe Austin, the company’s post-delivery manager, said during a meeting of the Everett Port Commission in July.

Austin said the company plans to bring in equipment and some 300 people in mid-September to fix any problems with the Shoup following trials currently under way. The work will last until mid-December.

In the process, the company will essentially take over Pier 1, erecting offices, a meal facility, equipment rooms, utilities and an extensive security system.

Austin said the company has budgeted $5.8 million and will likely spend more on hotel rooms, rental cars and buses, living allowances, furniture, equipment and trailer rentals, security guards, laundry service and other items.

“We’re going to bring a lot of money to town,” he said.

The work is all part of the warranty for the Shoup, which was commissioned in June. Austin said workers also will install weapons technology that didn’t exist when the Shoup was constructed.

“They just move so fast with technology,” he said. “This ship does not have a close-in weapons system right now, but it will shortly.” As an aside, Austin said state residents are lucky to have the Shoup and its sophisticated monitoring systems.

“This ship is the best defense the state of Washington could ever have,” he said. “They’re tracking every airplane that flies along the U.S. coast. This ship could send a missile and put it in the bathtub of the CO in San Diego.”

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