West Coast Team Fulfills Key Company Goals

Ralph Monterrosa	Tony Larios	Megan Glynn

Ralph Monterrosa steps through a passageway to do some pipefitting work on the USS Lassen, a guided missle destroyer that sits docked at a Continental Maritime pier.

Rigger Tony Larios takes apart an eight-inch valve while in a small space of the USS Nimitz, which sits docked at Naval Air Station North Island.

Megan Glynn, an auditor and document controller, answers a question during a lean class in an office just below the Coronado Bridge.

These three are involved in different work, but are all in San Diego and part of the same team — the Continental Maritime team. They are just a few faces of Continental Maritime of San Diego, the Northrop Grumman Newport News subsidiary that provides expert services in fleet maintenance. This West Coast business, acquired by the Newport News shipyard in 1997, employs about 600 employees, the vast majority of whom work in trades.

As part of Northrop Grumman Newport News, Continental Maritime employees say they are involved in enhanced safety efforts, lean initiatives and training. They also describe a commitment to recording their processes.

While Continental Maritime stretches across 14 acres of land and 18 acres of water, employees work well beyond these boundaries on numerous ships. A recent summer visit to the shipyard reveals employees working on nearly a dozen and half ships. USS Shiloh. USS Tarawa. USS Cleveland. USS Boxer. USS Decatur. USS Rushmore. These are just some of them.

Continental Maritime and other West Coast shipyards, such as Southwest Marine and National Steel and Shipbuilding Company, work together on these naval vessels under a teaming agreement. From these local shipyards to the naval bases, Continental Maritime employees work in many locations across San Diego. Sometimes they work beyond the city taking part in jobs with Newport News employees.

Continental Maritime General Manager Dan Flood says, “We’re an asset to the Navy and the nation. The Navy has no shipyard here. We, along with our partners, are the Navy’s shipyard.”

Carl Aspinall

He praises the Continental Maritime team for being adept at preparing for a new job quickly and working swiftly to successfully complete it. “We act with speed,” he says. “All of our schedules are tight. All of our programs are geared to reacting quickly and getting work done expeditiously.”

CVN Program Manager Carl Aspinall puts it this way: “We are used to and excel at going down into spaces and fixing pipe right there on the spot.”

Just one day among Continental Maritime employees provides a good glimpse into what they do.

We must drive costs out of our processes and improve efficiency

Continental Maritime employees are pictured listening to an instructor from San Diego State University discuss lean.

On this summer morning, more than a dozen employees gather in a classroom for their first day of lean training. It’s the fourth lean 101 class conducted at Continental Maritime. After this training, about 80 employees will be graduates of it.

Two instructors from San Diego State University are on hand to lead the training. One of the instructors asks a question about forming a team focused on lean. “Why is it important to have a cross-functional team?”

“They see it from a different perspective,” Megan Glynn responds.

Leander Hill

The group tackles another question on whether a customer should pay for their services. Several tout their quality work. “We do it by the book. We don’t cut corners,” says Leander Hill, a Coatings Department leadman.

The instructor launches into a discussion about streamlining waste. “Your management is looking at a system to say what can we do better and they need your help to get there.”

On a classroom break, some participants describe the merit of such training. “This is what we need,” Hill says. “It’s important to discuss issues like this.”

Saul Rocha

Structural Foreman Saul Rocha says he wants to find easier ways to do his work and to make processes move faster and be more economical. “It does make a difference to see the overall picture,” he says.

Gene Heldenbrand, director of Production Management, is pleased with the shipyard’s lean efforts. “We’re seeing pockets of lean implemented across the yard,” he says.

He lists one example after another. Among them is an idea by employee Jacob McCartney to improve recycling efforts. So far, McCartney has saved the company more than $40,000 because he realized the importance of throwing away the same scrap metal in the same dumpster. The company now has small dumpsters labeled with names of metals, allowing the company to get a better price for recycled metal. Previously, the company’s scrap metal of all different kinds went into one large dumpster.

Jacob McCartney

Heldenbrand also points out various examples in shops, even one as simple as painting yellow lines to mark a parking space for a forklift. Employees no longer have to waste time searching for the forklift — one of many ideas put in place by Mechanic Department Supervisor John Stassinos.

A driving force behind lean is the efforts and encouragement from a Continental Maritime group that formed in February and includes Heldenbrand as well as leaders from Planning, Environmental Health and Safety and the Services Department.

Teamwork like this is visible throughout the business.

We must work collaboratively as a team to meet our big goals

Step onto the USS Nimitz (CVN 68) at Naval Air Station North Island and it’s evident Continental Maritime employees work well together and with employees from other shipyards, such as Pacific Ship Repair and Southwest Marine. Together the shipyards are performing maintenance on this ship that Newport News launched in 1972. Four Master Ship Repair Contractors, including Continental Maritime, each do about a quarter of the work. “This is probably one of the biggest availabilities that we as a community have done out here,” Carl Aspinall says.

Communication between the different workers on Nimitz is critical. “All the schedules have to be integrated to minimize conflicts,” Aspinall says.

About 150 Continental Maritime employees are busy working here each day in some 200 spaces. They provide expertise in areas that include pipefitting and boiler repair work.

Richard Rowe

Rodolfo Gonzalez

Among the employees are Structural Welder Richard Rowe and helper Rodolfo Gonzalez, who are working in a JP5 fuel tank area on this late morning. They’re helping to provide another entrance way into this area so the Navy can more easily maintain it. Rowe has just learned that his weld for another one of these new circular entrance ways passed a special test that raises the pressure in the area to ensure the weld is good. Any cracks or leaks would show from this test. “This is a good job. This is a good weld,” Rowe says. “If you don’t do quality work, it will come back to bite you.”

Meanwhile, Gonzalez watches intently and says, “I’m trying to learn so that I work my way up to structural welding.”

Hector Martinez and Ruben Espinoza

Tony Larios

Down another corridor, Pipefitter Hector Martinez, Pipe welder Ruben Espinoza and Rigger Tony Larios are in a small space. As Larios works to disassemble a large valve using some recently learned lean techniques, the other two are working on the cool water system to a jet blast deflector. “It’s been great working on the Nimitz,” Martinez says.

Espinoza, an 18-year shipyard worker who has worked at Continental Maritime about five months, says he joined the company because he heard people are treated well. “For one thing, safety is first,” he says.

Chris Davis

One of the employees who helps make that happen is Safety Inspector Chris Davis. It’s just before lunch and he’s on his way to provide a worker with some gloves. “I do whatever I can for people to make sure they come in and leave with all their fingers and toes,” he says.

Employees such as Davis train other employees well in safety. There are regular safety meetings among Continental Maritime employees and with representatives of the various shipyards on Nimitz. “It keeps everyone safe. It keeps injuries from happening,” Aspinall says. “It keeps everyone on their toes.”

We must focus on leadership and employees

Alberto Garcia and Orlando Munoz

Safety is just one area where employees say they receive good training. Employees such as Orlando Munoz, a painter, and Alberto Garcia, a painter and blaster, say the company prepares them well for their trades. They’re on a pier at Continental Maritime this late afternoon using a new large specialized vacuum for their work on USS Lassen (DDG 82), a ship launched in 1999 by Northrop Grumman Ship Systems’ Ingalls Shipbuilding in Mississippi. They’re setting up the vacuum hoses so they can sandblast a section of this ship.

Working as a well-trained team leads to job satisfaction. Nearby Munoz and Garcia on Lassen’s deck is Pipefitter Ralph Monterrosa. Consider what he says. “I like my job. There’s an excitement. It’s an experience,” he says. “I like it because there are good people and it’s a good company.”