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At the U.S. Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space Exposition 2026, Kari Wilkinson, executive vice president and president of Newport News Shipbuilding at HII (NYSE: HII), highlighted the company’s commitment to strengthen and expand the U.S. maritime industrial base.
Wilkinson served as a panelist for a discussion on advancing strategic requirements with a resilient shipbuilding enterprise. The panel examined initiatives shaping the maritime industrial base and how policy, budgeting, and long-term planning can sustain U.S. maritime dominance. Chris Miller, the U.S. Navy’s portfolio acquisition executive for maritime (PAE Maritime), moderated the discussion.
During the panel, Wilkinson said HII is growing and retaining the workforce needed to meet generational demand for its products. She also noted the company is deploying advanced technology solutions and increasing the share of shipbuilding work it distributes to partner companies across the country through distributed shipbuilding.
“Distributed shipbuilding is the way to get more done more effectively and absolutely directly invest in our American manufacturing industrial base,” Wilkinson said. “The work becomes easier when there are many doing it. The things that many can learn how to do or already know how to do, those are the things that are ripe for moving out of the shipyard and into the hands of people well qualified. We have shipbuilders all over the nation and we need them, especially as it relates to the mission at hand.”
Throughout Sea-Air-Space Expo 2026, HII is showcasing its role as America’s largest military shipbuilder and a global leader in autonomous maritime systems, along with expertise in mission-enabling technologies.
HII is America’s largest shipbuilder, delivering powerful ships and all-domain mission technologies, including unmanned systems, to U.S. and allied defense customers. The company is also the largest producer of unmanned underwater vehicles for the U.S. Navy and the world.
With a more than 140-year history of advancing U.S. national security, HII builds and integrates defense capabilities extending from the core fleet to C6ISR, AI/ML, EW, and synthetic training. Headquartered in Virginia, HII’s workforce is 44,000 strong.
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