PHNSY Hosts RoK Naval Shipyard Commander, USA

Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility Public Affairs JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii – Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility (PHNSY & IMF) officials hosted Republic of Korea (RoK) Navy counterparts during a visit, Nov. 13.

Shipyard Commander Capt. Brian Osgood led a discussion on the organization and operations of the Shipyard and gave a tour of Dry Dock 4 to RoK Naval Shipyard Commander Rear Adm. Seong-Back Kim and his staff.

“This visit by the admiral and his staff provided an opportunity to develop a mutual understanding of how our shipyards do business,” said Osgood. “With the U.S. Navy rebalancing our engagement in the Pacific, it’s vital that we listen and share ideas with our strategic partners in the region regarding logistics and maintenance needed to keep our fleets fit to fight.”

Kim requested the meeting to reestablish friendly relations between the two countries’ shipyards. He sought to benchmark the Shipyard’s maintenance support to the U.S. Navy fleet, skill development amongst its workforce and modernization of its facilities in comparison to his own. The last visit by a RoK Naval Shipyard commander to PHNSY & IMF was in 2006.

“I wanted to compare the availability timeframes of our surface ships and the types of maintenance we perform on our fleet as compared to the [Pearl Harbor Naval] Shipyard,” Kim said. “I was also interested as to how Pearl Harbor trains and integrates its civilian workforce with the active-duty Sailors.”

Kim and his staff ended their visit thoroughly impressed with the Shipyard.

“I marveled at their facilities and organization,” said Kim. “While some of the buildings might be a little old, they’re maintained extremely well. The organization of the Shipyard from people to operations is remarkable.”

The Shipyard is a field activity of the Naval Sea Systems Command and a one-stop regional maintenance center for the Navy’s surface ships and submarines. It is the largest industrial employer in the state of Hawaii with a combined civilian and military workforce of about 5,000.

Strategically located in the mid-Pacific, the Navy’s largest ship repair facility between the West Coast and the Far East is about a week of steam time closer to potential major regional contingencies in East Asia than sites on the West Coast.

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Press Release, November 19, 2012