WASHINGTON — The head of Davie Defense, a new American sister company of the well-known Canadian shipbuilder Davie, says he’s “bullish” on the company’s ability to capitalize on the skilled workforce in Texas to eventually build American icebreakers.
“We spent over two years looking at different shipyards in the US and potential acquisition targets … First and foremost, they’ve [Texas] got a great workforce demographic,” Davie Defense CEO Kai Skvarla told Breaking Defense in an interview today. “Second is Texas is a good place to do business.
“Third would be there’s a lot of technology and management talent in Texas and in the Houston area because of, again, I think a lot of it comes off of the oil and gas” industries, he added.
Davie earlier this week announced its plans to invest $1 billion into Gulf Copper shipyard, a Texas company that the Canadian shipbuilder purchased earlier this year. With that investment, Davie hopes to transform the facilities into what it’s calling an “American Icebreaker Factory,” with its eyes primarily on the US Coast Guard’s pending competition for the Arctic Security Cutter program. Those medium-sized icebreakers would operate in parallel with the larger Polar Security Cutters to ensure the Coast Guard and the US Navy’s fleets have reliable access to the High North and Antarctic regions.
Skvarla said in the short term, Davie will continue to support Gulf Copper’s current work while it spends the next 18 months preparing the facilities to produce icebreakers.
“Gulf Copper is currently very active in both commercial and government ship repair,” he said. “Our plan is to support their existing work there, through their existing clients, and help them to grow more work with the US government.”
While Davie’s Canadian operations and sister yard in Finland, Helsinki Shipyard, are both well-known quantities in their respective markets, the company’s endeavor into the United States is new. Skvarla said Davie Defense was established in April, and at that time, he was brought in to lead the company’s American business unit.
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Davie isn’t the only company publicly posturing to compete in an anticipated competition to build icebreakers for the Coast Guard. Four shipbuilders from across the United States, Canada and Finland earlier this year announced they would team up to offer their own version of the future Coast Guard ship, which they dubbed the “Seaspan-Aker Multi-Purpose Icebreaker.”
That team includes the Canadian shipbuilder Seaspan, the American company Bollinger Shipyards, based in Louisiana, and two Finnish firms.
Based in Northern Virginia, Skvarla was formerly a senior vice president at the engineering firm Serco, and prior to that, headed up a maritime consulting firm. He also was previously a shipbuilding program manager for the US Coast Guard.