An agreement between the U.S., the United Kingdom and Australia that could fuel the production of more nuclear submarines at Newport News Shipbuilding is driving international business to Hampton Roads.
Australian-based defense company Quality Maritime Surveyors is working to open a branch on the Peninsula to support the Australia-U.K.-U.S agreement known as AUKUS.
“We are most excited about setting up in America and supporting the program in Australia,” said Shaun Kennedy, director of Quality Maritime Surveyors.
“And also supporting American economy, Australian economy and the defense economy,” added wife and CEO Crystal Kennedy..
The business is one of hundreds of Australian companies interested in supporting the trilateral alliance in which the countries agree to share technologies so Australia can have access to nuclear-powered submarines.
Under the agreement, the U.S. would sell three to five nuclear-powered Virginia-class submarines to Australia in the 2030s as the country ramps up construction at its shipyard in Adelaide with U.S. technology and support. The submarines are constructed in Newport News and General Dynamics Electric Boat in Connecticut, although initial plans called for assembly in Australia, the Associated Press reported. U.S. submarines also will make more port visits in Australia to provide more familiarity with nuclear-powered technology.
HII, parent company of Newport News Shipbuilding, is preparing for the ramp-up in international collaboration. In January, the company appointed Michael Lempke to lead the company’s Australia business efforts in-country and connect HII with Australian government, business and academic partners.
More than 200 Australian companies have signed up to begin the qualification process to become an HII supplier, Lempke said.
“We believe AUKUS will create positive synergies for the shipbuilding workforce at large, including future opportunities for our workforce at Newport News Shipbuilding and at Mission Technologies,” Lempke said. “We are proud to support this historic agreement during a time of strategic need.”
The alliance, Lempke said, is an “unprecedented opportunity” for the integration and expansion of the submarine industrial base across all three countries. HII is working with leading defense companies in the U.K. and Australia.
“We are engaged across a number of lines of effort and are well positioned to leverage our longstanding expertise in nuclear shipbuilding, workforce development, supply chain analytics, industrial maintenance and sustainment, and other related defense technologies to support our trilateral partners,” Lempke said.
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Bridging the nuclear skill gap
Additionally, HII partnered with academic institutions in Australia to train the country’s workforce to support nuclear shipbuilding construction and sustainment, Lempke said. The educational institutions, along with HII and Australian defense company Babcock, form the AUKUS Workforce Alliance. The workforce alliance will educate Australian engineering, maritime and nuclear trade and professional workers so they will be qualified to support nuclear-powered submarines from infrastructure, sustainment and supply chain to disposal.
Quality Maritime Surveyors, which conducts non-destructive testing and inspections, is interested in collaborating with shipbuilding contractors and technical institutes in the U.S. and Australia to raise a nuclear shipbuilding workforce in Australia, the Kennedys said. Their business plan would involve Australian shipbuilders visiting Hampton Roads to learn from local shipbuilders, who also would travel to Australia to help train its workforce.
“We are coming here so we can gain the skills and gain the knowledge required to build the Virginia-class,” Shaun Kennedy said.
“We want to take people in Newport News and bring them up and put them out into the industry, and we are just as excited about bringing it back to Australia and implementing it in the schools,” Crystal Kennedy said.
Australia is a non-nuclear weapons state. It signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 1970, committing not to acquire nuclear weapons and to adhere to strong non-proliferation obligations.
Because of this, the country’s shipbuilding workforce has no experience with the nuclear reactors that power more than 40% of U.S. Navy warships. Language in the treaty does not prohibit nuclear material for non-explosive military use, such as naval propulsion.
“The skill shortage is going to have to be obviously addressed and addressed very quickly,” Crystal Kennedy said.
Shaun Kennedy has 32 years of submarine-building experience. He launched Quality Maritime Surveyors 12 years ago and was contracted by the Australian government to inspect its Collins-class diesel-electric submarines for corrosion, cracks and structural issues. Crystal Kennedy is a member of multiple defense-focused committees, including the Australian Industry and Defense Network.
The company’s vision extends to establishing workshop facilities in Newport News and a training center in Australia. It also plans to open a U.S. headquarters in Thomasville, Georgia, where the Kennedys have a home. But officially setting up shop in Newport News and training the shipbuilding workforce locally and abroad, they said, could take about a year to come to fruition.
“It is a highly regulated process. It is just a different caliber,” Crystal Kennedy said. “We want to be as fast as we can be. We are here learning these programs every day, and we are trying to duplicate the effort in Australia to work with the skills and training academies, the national governments and national defenses to put a school together to support not just ourselves, but other companies coming together.”
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The role politics could play
While HII said AUKUS can expand the submarine industrial base, one Hampton Roads expert said “political unknowns,” such as election cycles, could affect the alliance from year to year.
“Currently, it’s not a national commitment — it’s a democratic commitment,” said Aaron Karp, an Old Dominion University lecturer specializing in international security, armed conflict and weapons proliferation. “There are long-term politics here, which can’t be ignored.”
The agreement will see its first U.S. presidential election this year, which Karp said brings the possibility of a new leader who disagrees with alliance obligations.
“Once you begin to question alliance commitments, they all begin to slowly diminish,” Karp said. “And the act of questioning an alliance, weakens it.”
If lawmakers backing the AUKUS agreement can safeguard it for the time being, it will still have to withstand U.S. politics for about the next two decades. Further pressuring the agreement is the congressional funding it relies on.
The AUKUS initiative was first announced in 2021, the Arms Control Association reported. But authorization for the program was only recently passed in the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act. The defense policy bill authorized the program, but did not fund it. The Senate passed a supplemental bill Feb. 13 that allocates $3 billion in resources to fund the implementation of the program. The bill will work through the House in the coming weeks.
“U.S. Congress doesn’t like doing long-term funding,” Karp said. “They hate it because with long-term funding, they lose control.”
In contrast, Karp said, shipbuilding contractors need multi-year funding for planning purposes.
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Keeping pace with rivals
U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, who led the effort to formally implement the AUKUS agreement, said the U.S. is “not at a place” to fund the purchase of multiple submarines right now. But he said lawmakers are fully committed to seeing the agreement through.
“I think the secret to its longevity is a realization that the China-U.S. relationship is going to be the most challenging and important for the remainder of the century,” said the Virginia Democrat.
The agreement is key to U.S. efforts to maintain maritime security in the Indo-Pacific region, a contested area where conflict could arise, the Department of State said in November.
“This enhanced trilateral security partnership is contributing to the peace, stability, and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific and in turn the world,” said Ambassador Bonnie Denise Jenkins, under secretary for Arms Control and International Security.
The rising threat of China in the Pacific, Kaine said, is pushing AUKUS legislation through Congress with bipartisan support.
China has made headlines in recent months for outpacing U.S. military shipbuilding, with the Wall Street Journal reporting China’s navy fields 370 battle force ships, more than the U.S. Navy. That number is expected to rise to 435 by 2030.
“We need to keep pace to be able to check off any Chinese aggression,” Kaine said. “The best way to do that is not to just do it as the U.S., but to do it linking arms with allies.”
Caitlyn Burchett, caitlyn.burchett@virginiamedia.com
