NEWPORT NEWS ANNOUNCES PROGRAM DIRECTORS FOR TWO
21^ST CENTURY AIRCRAFT CARRIERS

NEWPORT NEWS, Va., July 18, 1997 – Newport News Shipbuilding (NYSE:NNS), America’s largest shipbuilder and the sole producer of the U. S. Navy’s nuclear-powered aircraft carriers for the past 35 years, announced today the appointment of program directors for two carriers that will enter service in the 21^st century.

Michael G. Shawcross has been appointed director of the CVN 77 program, the next Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the U. S. Navy’s plans, scheduled for delivery in 2008. He will be responsible for overall coordination of design and construction.

Looking further into the next century, Robert E. Davis has been appointed program director for the carrier that will follow CVN 77, known as CV(X) 78, scheduled for delivery in 2013. He will be responsible for all aspects of the program.

Shawcross has been with the company for 17 years since graduating from the Florida Institute of Technology. Prior to the appointment announced today he served as Director of Naval Marketing, responsible for the sales and marketing of the company’s aircraft carriers, submarines, surface ships, ship overhauls and associated engineering.

His previous assignments included serving as the company’s senior Washington, D. C. representative in liaison with the U. S. Navy and other government agencies. He began his company career as a nuclear test engineer on the Los Angles-class (SSN 688) submarine construction program.

"Newport News is committed to ensuring that CVN 77 incorporates the latest available processes and technologies that can significantly reduce life-cycle cost – both in acquisition cost and operating costs over the ship’s 50-year service life," Shawcross said.

Newport News Shipbuilding has proposed a "smart buy" of CVN 77 that the company says would save $600 million in its total acquisition cost by moving up initial funding from the planned year 2000 to Fiscal Year 1998. The scheduled delivery date for the ship, 2008, would be unaffected. With the Navy voicing support for the proposal, the Congress is now considering initial CVN 77 funding of $345 million in 1998.

"This smart approach to acquisition takes advantage of existing industrial base efficiencies by avoiding shipbuilder and supplier gaps in production and the costs that would be required to reconstitute them -- and it also saves on inflation costs," Shawcross said.

CVN 77 should realize significant improvements over prior ships in the Nimitz-class, according to Shawcross. "At NNS, we have a full-fledged effort underway to identify and integrate new technologies and improvements for this carrier, to achieve greater life cycle cost savings and enhance the capability of the ship where it makes sense," Shawcross said. "As a part of that effort we will soon announce formation of a ‘Team 77,’ made up of industry leaders who will join us in designing this ship. We will also be looking for opportunities to backfit selected changes from CVN 77 to existing carriers to further reduce their operating and support costs and improve the payoff to the total program."

Davis, the CV(X) 78 program director, joined Newport News Shipbuilding in 1996. He is a former commander of the U. S. Navy’s Carrier Air Wing Seventeen, with more than 22 years of Naval Aviation experience. Previously he had held senior U. S. Navy flight leadership positions, including command tours during Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and in Bosnia. Before being selected by the company as program director for CV(X) 78, he was Deputy Director of the Newport News Shipbuilding Innovation Center and Design Manager for the CVX "Concept of Operations."

Newport News Shipbuilding is America’s largest ship design and construction company. It has produced approximately 800 ships during its 111 years of operations – including Navy aircraft carriers, submarines and cruisers. The company is currently building the nuclear-powered aircraft carriers Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) and Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) and has begun work in preparation for construction of the Navy’s New Attack Submarine. It is also building nine Double Eagle product tankers. Its 1996 revenues totaled $1.87 billion, with earnings before interest and taxes of $140 million. The current backlog is approximately $3.1 billion. The workforce numbers 18,000, making it Virginia’s largest private employer.