THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 11, 1995 TAG: 9501110388
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHRISTOPHER DINSMORE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
Hampton Roads shipyards hope to benefit from a new public-private venture that has been formed in Norfolk to help make them more competitive in the international ship repair market.
The Center for Advanced Ship Repair and Maintenance will oversee the development of solutions to costly engineering problems in ship repair. While its principal focus will be on technologies, it will also pursue an informational and educational role, looking for other ways to improve the health of local shipyards, said Thomas J. Fox, the center's executive director.
The center is a joint venture of Old Dominion University, Virginia's Center for Innovative Technology, the city of Norfolk and the South Tidewater Association of Ship Repairers, an industry group representing most of the region's shipyards.
The center was introduced Tuesday at a press conference that included Norfolk Mayor Paul D. Fraim and ODU President James V. Koch.
The region's shipyards provide about 12,000 jobs and inject more than $1 billion a year into the economy of South Hampton Roads. However, ship repair work has ebbed in recent years.
``The main customer of those shipyards was and continues to be the U.S. Navy, but they are not the same customer they were just one or two years ago,'' said John L. ``Jack'' Roper III, executive vice president of Norshipco, the largest private shipyard in South Hampton Roads and chairman of the shipyard association.
``They just cannot provide the amount of work that they once did,'' Roper said.
To survive the shipyards need to tap the $10 billion international commercial ship repair market. It's a market that responds only to price.
``You could have the best shipyard in the world and they'd keep sailing by if they don't think you're offering the best price, Roper said.
That's where the center comes in, he said. If it can develop cost-effective new technologies for the region's shipyards, it will enable them to become more competitive, develop new customers and preserve jobs.
The center, which just opened in downtown Norfolk, has an initial budget of $2.4 million and already has identified three research projects.
The actual research will be conducted by ODU faculty from the College of Engineering and Technology and the College of Sciences. Work will take place at both the university and local shipyards.
The planned projects include:
looking for improved ways to replace paint and inhibit rust on ship hulls;
determine the impact of stormwater runoff from drydocks and how to minimize it;
finding ways to stop the fouling of water intakes, such a ballast tanks, by little creatures, such as barnacles and zebra mussels.
``One of those projects, much to everyone's surprise, has already clicked,'' said Fox, former director of industrial programs at ODU's engineering school.
Several power companies have already approached the fledgling center to help finance its research on the bio-fouling of water intakes, he said.
The Navy's Office of Naval Research has given the center a two-year, $1.05 million grant from the Technology Reinvestment Program. That program is designed to help U.S. companies develop affordable technologies with both commercial and military applications.
Old Dominion, the Center for Innovative Technologies and the shipyard association chipped in the additional $1.35 million. Office space was donated by the city of Norfolk.
Roper credited ODU and particularly Griffith McRee, associate dean of the engineering school, with bringing the center from an idea two years ago to a reality today. by CNB