Inside Ingalls | Ingalls President Kari Wilkinson

Thank you. I appreciate you having me.

Yes, we have been talking a lot about culture, and I think you can look at it from a number of different ways. I think culture, first of all, culture is whatever we want it to be, right? It's how we define it for ourselves. It's what we aspire to, to your point. It's how we treat one another, how we respect one another. It's what we allow, it's what we don't allow. And nobody defines that for us. And I think the culture that I see in the shipyard might be different than what somebody else sees because certainly we have our own perspectives, but I think we all look for different things as well. But I think at the foundation is how we treat each other, that we take care of one another. I very much view the shipyard as a family, right? I have people here that I've been very, very close to over the years, and I've grown closer to in all of the amazing things that happen here and the difficult things that we work through together. And so the culture that I look for is treating the people around me like they are part of my family, and I want them to succeed. I want them to be safe. I want them to feel amazing about what they do. But I think fundamentally it comes down to what do we want it to be? And obviously the foundation for that is going to be our company values, but we set that culture right. So if someone says, 'Hey, what's the culture of the shipyard?' It's whatever we want it to be.

Yeah, so I like the word extraordinary. When I first had the honor to come into the role that I have today, I got asked the question about what the shipyard is like, and the first word that came to my mind was extraordinary. You think about the things that happen. In that particular discussion, I was talking about just lifting a unit, just setting a unit on the keel blocks to start building or continue to build out the ship. That's pretty ordinary. Looking up and seeing what's happening and how the ship is coming together, and that's just Tuesday. That happens all the time in here. And not withstanding the fact that we take raw materials, just simple plate, raw pipe, cable, etc., and our people, our shipbuilders, put that together and create things that go out and defend peace around the globe. That's extraordinary. Looking at the personal sacrifices that I've seen shipbuilders make over the years to do the things to light off engines, to get a ship to trials, the things that they miss in their own lives. I think that is extraordinary, right? To make those kinds of sacrifices and to do it every day. And you've probably heard me say before that shipbuilding is not for everyone. You have to want to do it. It is a commitment, and not everybody can do it. But I've had the honor to work with some extraordinary people along the way, and they've really helped me define who I am, but more importantly who I want to be. And that changes every single day that I see something happen here in the shipyard that I think, 'I used to think that was not possible,' and I see people come together and make those things happen.

No, I think that's a great question and so relevant. You know, turn on the news like you said and every day we see another conflict or somebody else or something else happening around the world. And the things that we do for our customers, we'll start at the macro sense. Our customers need us to do what we're doing. It's so important. We can't build ships enough, fast enough for our customer right now because they need them today. So all of the things that we have in backlog, if you will, that we have on contract to go do for our customer, and the ships we're trying to negotiate, all of those things are really important to what's happening around the globe. I would say from a personal standpoint, thinking about what that conflict around the world means, like putting ourselves in the shoes of people somewhere that are not protected, that don't have the freedoms that we have in this country to say and do the things that we do. Making it really personal, that's just kind of a gift that we have, and it's so easy to take it for granted. So from a personal standpoint, I know that seeing all of those things, seeing our ships overseas doing the things that they do, make me really, really think about the privileges and the blessings that are in my life and the things that I want to protect. And what we do here really does that at a global scale.

Yeah, so I will tell you that was a great event. Thank you again to those that I got to share a dinner with. Listening to the stories, there's camaraderie and there's community and there's so much humor. We had a good laugh at one point during the evening. The room was a buzz because people were sharing their personal stories of the things that they experienced when they first came to the shipyard. I think the thing that keeps most of us coming back is just that sense of purpose and being connected to something bigger than ourselves. Whether it's faith, whether it's family, community, the purpose we have here, the mission that we're helping to enable and fulfill. Those are really powerful things. And if you connect yourself to that, I think it's also one of the things that allows shipbuilders to do the extraordinary things that they do, because it is about something bigger. It's something that drives you or maybe pulls you to get to the end result. And that is so exciting to me. It's like being an adrenaline junkie, I guess, right? Feeling that sense of accomplishment and responsibility fulfilled is really exciting to me and I think to a lot of folks that describe their experiences.

Thank you.