Kennedy's loss hurts Mayport

[thelakelander]

Jacksonville Business Journal - June 22, 2007by Tony QuesadaStaff Writer

MAYPORT -- The percentages facing Eduardo Medina are formidable: 20 percent to 30 percent.

That's what Medina, owner of Capitol Auto Sales on Mayport Road, about 2.3 miles from Naval Station Mayport, estimates the USS John F. Kennedy's crew contributed to his total sales last year.

Mayport-based ships provide an excellent market for durable products such as cars because their crews turn over about every three years. "You have people with a need for a car all the time," Medina said.

Before it was decommissioned in March, the Kennedy made up the largest share of that market with more than 3,000 officers and enlisted men and women. That's more than half the total number on the other 19 ships at Mayport and nearly 20 percent of the naval station's personnel. Now, the steady reassignment of the carrier's personnel -- about 250 a week -- is apparent.

"I've noticed a decline in customers coming from the base," said Medina, a former Navy petty officer who understands the impact goes beyond the Kennedy's crew. "You're losing 3,000 sailors and all the support for the carrier and the contractors. You're losing a lot of income coming to the area."

Medina and others are feeling what local leaders have worried about ever since the Navy announced December 2004 its desire to take the Kennedy out of service more than a decade ahead of schedule. The Navy said the move would save $1.2 billion over five years.

The Kennedy's departure leaves Mayport without an aircraft carrier, making Norfolk, Va., the only East Coast base with carriers. Although Navy leaders have said they want two East Coast carrier ports, the remaining carriers in the Atlantic Fleet are nuclear-powered, and Mayport lacks infrastructure to maintain a nuclear propulsion plant.

Maintaining an industrial base
With no timeline or definitive commitment from the Navy to make Mayport nuclear-capable -- a multiyear process -- city and business leaders and federal elected officials are urging the Navy to move other ships here as soon as possible. Besides the negative economic impact, they worry the area's ship repair industrial base will dwindle if too much time passes without a carrier or several smaller ships.

On June 6, the Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce adopted a resolution urging the Navy to move ships to Mayport, and the City Council followed June 12 with a similar resolution.

The Kennedy's decommissioning and near-term decommissionings of other Mayport-based ships "places the Jacksonville shipyard industrial community in severe distress," the city's resolution states. The likely result is the "downsizing or closure of support industries [and] a permanent loss of the attendant skilled labor force."

Virginia-based Earl Industries LLC's Mayport site has not yet been hurt by the Kennedy's decommissioning while it's preparing for the ship to be towed away in July, said Joseph O'Conor, director of Florida operations. But after that, he expects the company's workload will drop about 30 percent. Earl Industries employs 110 people locally, but that number has swelled to about 300 at busy times.

The area's capacity to support big jobs was evident in 2003, when companies such as Earl Industries and Atlantic Marine Florida LLC performed a more than $300 million overhaul on the Kennedy at Mayport.

"This port has shown a unique ability to surge when necessary," said Herschel Vinyard, vice president of Atlantic Marine Holding Co. But that gets harder as the industrial base shrinks.

Northeast Florida has amassed a talented pool of people qualified to work on Navy ships that the local ship repair industry wants to keep. "There are some unique Navy-certified craftsman who won't hang around if there's nothing for them to do," Vinyard said.

If too many craftsmen leave, reconstituting that base will take time.

"I don't think I can put a timeline on it," O'Conor said. "But it would be difficult."

Perhaps the biggest challenge would be rebuilding the "gray collar" work force consisting of job titles such as estimators, purchasers and project managers.

Such professionals, who earn $50,000 to $70,000 a year at Earl Industries, grow into those jobs through many years in the industry. Earl Industries has 15 to 20.

"They know the business," O'Conor said. "Those are the guys with 25 to 30 years' experience."

And unlike shipboard tradesmen like welders, who can move fairly seamlessly between companies, gray collar workers "need to know the company culture" in addition to the industry, he said. As a result, they often are more tied to their communities, and if they leave the area to find work, "it would be hard to get them back."

Full article: http://jacksonville.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/stories/2007/06/25/story2.html

[DevilsAdvocate]

Maybe it wouldn't be all that bad if the Navy just left Mayport all together...

[raheem942]

Maybe it wouldn't be all that bad if the Navy just left Mayport all together...

naw , if the navy left that part of the county would just turn in to a brookly style slum in the matter of aout 5 years.......trust me  they need the navy but we should bring new developement to replace the navy in the event that  .that happens