Aker shipyard finding much to celebrate

When a champagne bottle cracked against the ship to christen Aker Philadelphia Shipyard's second tanker for ExxonMobil Corp. early this week, the current and future governors of Pennsylvania were on hand, as were the current and former chief executive officers of the nation's second-largest commercial shipbuilder.

There is a lot to celebrate at Aker. The company has orders to build ships through 2018. Employment has grown to 1,100 - a level last reached in 2010.

Steinar Nerbovik, 53, is the shipyard's new president and CEO. A naval architect and welder by training, he said shipbuilding "has been my life. I'm a Norwegian citizen, but my future is here. I'm a big Eagles fan, I'm a big Flyers fan. I'm even a Phillies fan."

Kristian Rokke, 31, Aker's CEO since April 2011, recently returned to his native Norway, but will remain chairman of the shipyard's board of directors.

Rokke was in Philadelphia for the naming ceremony of the 115,000-ton ExxonMobil tanker Eagle Bay, which will transport crude oil from Alaska to the West Coast.

In his three years as CEO, Rokke secured more than $1.5 billion in new contracts for the Philadelphia yard. He plans to remain very involved.

"I can say categorically and guarantee, this shipyard is not moving. This shipyard is here to stay," Rokke said. "This is about jobs. The shipyard here in Philadelphia is firmer than it's ever been."

Rokke's father, Kjell Inge Rokke, is chairman of Norwegian parent company Aker ASA. The elder Rokke engineered the deal in 2001 to take over the Kvaerner Philadelphia Shipyard, which was in trouble and flirting with bankruptcy.

Looking ahead, what are the challenges?

"Just to continue in the same direction," Nerbovik said. "If you look at our order backlog, four years is fantastic. Not many shipyards can say that. We have a lot of work."

"We need to make sure that we continuously are improving on our productivity, on our safety, on our quality," he said. "We are a very competitive shipyard, but we can always be better."

Aker received $42 million from Pennsylvania taxpayers in February 2011 to build two tankers, for which Aker ordered parts but had no buyers. Without state money - and private construction financing Aker secured - the yard might have ended operations. Aker sold those two ships and landed an agreement to build four tankers for Crowley Maritime. Aker has a co-venture with Crowley, called Philly Tankers, to build two ships, and possibly four.

Aker signed a contract in September 2011 with ExxonMobil affiliate SeaRiver Maritime Inc. for two tankers. That triggered the recall of workers and the restart of an apprenticeship program suspended when global financial trouble stalled shipbuilding and caused more than 600 layoffs at Aker.

Aker also has contracts to build two container ships for Matson Navigation.

Next month, Aker will begin training 30 new apprentices, who will spend three years learning to be welders, shipbuilders, or pipe fitters.

Aker began the apprenticeship program in 2004. More than 100 graduates have worked at the yard.

"The future of the shipyard is to get skilled local people in," Nerbovik said. "There are two classes of 15 coming - in February and June. We need future shipbuilders."

Management has been criticized, since 2001 when the first ship was built, for hiring subcontractors and out-of-state workers. A group "Local People, Local Jobs" protested last year that Aker had turned its backs on local workers.

The protests stemmed from Aker taking on a contractor that didn't hire carpenters' union laborers, and, critics said, employed nonlocal workers.

"We always have been, and always will be, a union shop," Rokke said. "It's something we are very proud of. We prefer to hire locals, but these are very complex vessels that we build, and we use supplies and suppliers from throughout the world from time to time."

"I want to emphasize that we are very cognizant of the role we play in this community," Rokke said. "While legally this shipyard is ours, in many ways it belongs to the community, the people of this region. We have a fantastic workforce. We have many locals; we continue to hire locals. We want to hire more locals."

"We have not only the best shipyard in the country, but also the infrastructure around. There is skilled labor in this region that we can pull from. This started as a public-private partnership. That's one of the reasons we've been successful here. We're here to stay for the long term, right where we are."