Dear HII Employees:
We are pleased to announce that Rick Spaulding has been appointed as HII’s vice president, Corporate Program Operations, effective today. He will report directly to Chris Kastner, and will spend the next two weeks transitioning from his current role at Newport News Shipbuilding.

In this newly created position, Rick will oversee the corporate-wide review of program metrics and tools to ensure program cost and schedule performance are being appropriately measured and tools are being implemented to manage risk. He will also be responsible for the evaluation of capabilities across the corporation to ensure the best value is being applied to program challenges. He will work with each of HII’s divisions to ensure that program management organizations have the required training and talent pipelines to perform appropriate succession planning for future leaders.

Rick comes to HII’s corporate office having most recently served as Newport News’s vice president of business process standardization, where he was responsible for the implementation of program and production standards across the division as well as the acceleration of digital shipbuilding and other key business functions. He also led efforts to share best practices across all HII shipyards.

This is an outstanding opportunity for Rick and a reflection of his distinguished service and unique perspective. His shipbuilding career spans 38 years, and he brings unparalleled expertise in central planning and process excellence from both Newport News and Ingalls. His extensive knowledge of early fabrication and planning processes have been instrumental in Newport News’ efforts to standardize business processes and formalize best practice sharing across HII shipyards. His broad understanding of the operational elements of each of HII’s shipyards and proven leadership implementing process improvement initiatives throughout his career makes him the perfect fit for this new position.

Rick earned a bachelor’s degree in naval architecture and marine engineering from the University of Michigan in 1983. He serves as chair of the Ship Production committee of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers and is a member of the Executive Control Board of the National Shipbuilding Research Program and the University of Michigan Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering Advisory Board.

Please join us in congratulating Rick and supporting him in this position.

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Chris Kastner
Executive Vice President and COO, HII

Jennifer Boykin
Executive Vice President and President, Newport News Shipbuilding