NEWPORT NEWS, Va., February 26, 2001 – President George W. Bush will be the principal speaker for the christening of the U.S. Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, Ronald Reagan, on Sunday, March 4 at Newport News Shipbuilding in Newport News, Va. The ceremony begins at 2 p.m. EST and is open to the public. As the ship’s sponsor, Mrs. Ronald Reagan will break the traditional bottle of champagne against the ship’s hull and will christen the ship in her husband’s name.

Other officials anticipated to speak at the event include Newport News Shipbuilding Chairman and CEO William P. Fricks; Governor of Virginia James S. Gilmore, III; Senators John W. Warner (R-Va.) and George Allen (R-Va.); Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld; Secretary of the Navy (Acting) Robert B. Pirie, Jr.; and Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Vern Clark.

Reagan towers 20 stories above the waterline, and at 1,092 feet long is nearly as long as the Empire State Building is tall. The ship displaces approximately 95,000 tons of water when afloat. Reagan has a 4.5-acre flight deck, more than seven million feet of cable, and when operational will house approximately 6,000 personnel and 80 aircraft onboard. The ship will be in service and on-call for missions around the world for the next half-century. The largest mobile structure on earth, an aircraft carrier takes millions of man-hours and nearly five years to build.

Newport News Shipbuilding designs and constructs nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines for the U.S. Navy and provides life-cycle services for ships in the Navy fleet. The company employs nearly 17,000 people and has annual revenues of approximately $2 billion. For more information on NNS, aircraft carrier construction, or the christening of Reagan, visit us on the Web at www.nns.com.