Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co., Newport News VA

Newport News Shipbuilding was started by Collis P. Huntington in 1886, as Chesapeake Dry Dock & Construction Company.  Incredibly, within ten years of its foundation it was building battleships for the U.S. Navy.  Through two world wars, it established itself as the world's most capable shipyard, outliving all the other great naval and merchant shipbuilders.  It was fully operational at the start of the WWII emergency and expanded its capabilities for the war effort with the aid of $22mm from the Navy.  At its peak, the yard employed 35,000 people and still found the resources to run North Carolina Shipbuilding, one of the best of the emergency shipbuilders.  It continued as both a naval and merchant shipbuilder and repairer after the war and is today the largest U.S. shipbuilder.  It was privately held until it was acquired by Tenneco in 1968.  Tenneco spun it off as an independent company in 1996 and its stock traded on the New York Stock Exchange, but it was immediately a takeover target.  General Dynamics tried to buy it in 1998 and Litton Industries in 1999.  GD tried again in 2001 but was beaten out by Northrop Grumman which closed the deal in December 2001.  The shipyard was integrated in January 2008 with Northrop Grumman Ship Systems (Ingalls and Avondale) and is now technically part of Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding.  Visit it at www.nn.northropgrumman.com and see it from the air on Google here.

Note that Newport News' lawyers tell me that Current Navy security requirements prohibit disclosure of the hull numbers on the Navy ships that we build.  None of the other Big Six  shipbuilders tell me this.  It's mindbogglingly idiotic, but what can you do?