NAVSSES
NAVSSES located in Philadelphia is a
Navy facility that was advertised as an Engineering and technology center.
But in fact, it was nothing more than a glorified data collection and
Mother may I request center. What that means is that the people
of NAVSSES lied about what they actually do, can do, or have the knowledge
to do what they claim they can do. There was no engineering going on
in Philadephia. I doubt that things have changed.
First off, no one there at NAVSSES did
anything remotely that resembled engineering, and yet, this is what
the public expects from such a place. No, I'm sorry to say that much
of the actually engineering was and is done by private contractors.
The people at NAVSSES, if anything, simply issue contracts for the work,
which can all be done by a secretary.
So why are the taxpayer paying so much
(1.5 billion) to keep the place open, you might ask. Part of it has
to do with creating jobs, some of it has to with keeping businesses
in Philadelphia, and some has to with with politics. No man in Washington
DC from NJ or PA wants to lose well paying jobs, not to mention the
tax revenues from NAVSSES. After-all, cities like Camden across the
River and Philadelphia have been dying.
Much of the problems at NAVSSES can be
aimed at the people running the place, the director, her co-helpers,
managers and those at Carderock, like the Admirals. None of them are
assessing the cost on return, none of them are creating or developing
new anything. NAVSSES, is nothing more than a repair facility advisor.
They make themselves appear to be important by setting up rules on how
to repair a piece of equipment. One of those rules is to get approval
from NAVSSES first, before anything repair can be started. Sounds like
a subtle form of extortion to me. And I say that, because all other
shipyards have the ability and engineers to make their own decisions
about how something should be fixed. After-all, they built or build
the ships in question.
No one at NAVSSES was out seeking work
or creating work, which is why much of the place is barely hanging on.
The other issue with NAVSSES is that
over the past 15 - 20 years, the place has hired recent college graduates
with zip working experiences, let alone anything to do with ship construction
and its complexities.
Now, there is nothing wrong with hire
recent graduates, what is wrong about NAVSSES is that management promotes
the inexperienced to being supervisors and managers often within the
first two years. Sad but true. I don't know of anyone that would want
a doctor doing a surgery on you without some hard core knowledge and
experiences. But, the NAVY does just that when it comes to ship building.
Secretaries have even been promoted to such levels making $90,000 plus,
not to mention all the other benefits. No wonder it cost billions to
build anything for the military anymore.
Heck, even the present director and many
of her helpers were promoted with no experiences at all. And don't even
believe the phoney resumes from the director and staff, much of them
have been doctored. I know because I know many of their histories. Promotions
at NAVSSES were based on who you know and not what your experiences
are.
If NAVSSES does anything good, it is
to push papers around. It is time that the Secretary of the Navy looked
into what is going on in Philadelphia at the shipyard. This time, bring
some people from other shipyards and ask them if they can't do the same.
The public won't be surprised. NAVSSES is just another Golf Course of
easy money making paper pushers. No new invention has come out of the
place in 50 years that benefitted anyone. Every one of the inventions
NAVSSES claims to have are nothing more than subtle changes to an existing
system. I don't call that an invention. It's a repair...
Everything written above is
my opinion, Larry Lueder, I worked 20 years with NAVSSES, so I know
a lot
of what goes on there. I also attend 3 difference colleges and did 19
years of Designing and building ships and ship systems. I was discriminated
against on many levels at NAVSSES. Hence this posting. Read my book
to learn more...
NAVSSES from Amazon