Southwest Marine Wins Contract

A contract awarded to Southwest Marine Inc. will swell the company’s San Diego work force by 500 over the next year.

The $30.3-million contract to overhaul and upgrade the Spurance Class destroyer Fife is the largest single-ship contract awarded to the company, according to Southwest Marine president Art Engel.

The contract, which will begin in September and stretch over 10 months, will bolster a local work force that had declined from 900 to 700 over the past few years. Pipe fitters, structural workers and electronic technicians will be among those hired for the project.

Engel said that some workers who were previously laid off will be recalled and others will be recruited from outside the county.

A $40-million capital improvement of the company’s San Diego piers and dry docks over the last two years “put us in a position where we could handle this size project,” Engel said.

“In the past few years we were losing big contracts to shipyards outside of California, but now I think you will see San Diego coming back as a major ship repair center,” he said. Southwest, which also operates shipyards in Los Angeles and San Francisco, is based in San Diego.