NEWPORT – The Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division Newport reported that its local spending in fiscal 2017 was $1.2 billion, an increase over the previous year of 9.3 percent.
The command employs 3,212 civilian government employees as well as 41 military personnel, accounting for a payroll expense of $343.4 million, which represents a year-over-year increase of 7.4 percent. Seventy-four percent of the civilian staff are classified as engineers or scientists, and 910 of them have advanced degrees, including 147 with doctorate degrees. Combined with contract employees in southern New England, the total workforce is estimated to be 5,755.
Federal and State Nursing Home Staffing Mandates
Staffing has always been an ongoing challenge in the long-term care industry. However, since the…
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NUWC Newport issued $518.6 million in contracts – mostly for engineering services – in fiscal 2017, an increase of 65.9 percent. Of those contracts in 2017, $281.9 million went to Rhode Island companies, $55.2 million went to Massachusetts companies and $14.8 million went to Connecticut companies.
Capt. Michael Coughlin is the commander of NUWC Newport, which is the oldest warfare center in the nation, with roots in 1869 when the Naval Torpedo Station was founded on Goat Island in Newport Harbor. It is the shore command of the U.S. Navy that provides research, development, test and evaluation, engineering and fleet support for submarines, autonomous underwater systems, undersea offensive and defensive weapons systems, and countermeasures associated with undersea warfare.
NUWC continues to be an economic powerhouse that is so poorly appreciated by Newport’s elected officials who live a mere three miles to the south of NUWC. Our council members are oh-so-quick to talk about the latest boat show, boat race, or conference coming to town and expected to swell city coffers with bed and drink tax revenues. Our school system rarely mentions to students the 3,200 awesome career opportunities that are now turning over because of boomer retirements. Only 6% of NUWC employees come from Newport and only 25% live on Aquidneck. A significant one-third live in MA or CT. RI cities/towns could be doing so much MORE to convince these highly-skilled, well-paid STEM professionals to live in our RI communities and contributing their talents to their livability.