Jacksonville’s largest employer is adding about 2,000 military and civilian employees to its workforce — and they’re coming with the latest high-tech warship in the U.S. Navy’s fleet.
Navy Capt. Paul Young, commodore of Littoral Combat Ship Squadron II, spoke Monday to the Rotary Club of Jacksonville about what being home port for 12 of the Navy’s newest, most technologically advanced warships will mean for Mayport Naval Station.
The base currently employs about 9,000 people, according to JAX Chamber, making it the fourth-largest employer in Northeast Florida.
Naval Air Station Jacksonville is No. 1 in the region with 19,800 employees, followed by Duval County Public Schools (12,060) and Baptist Health (9,800).
According to a report from the city Office of Economic Development, the military currently provides employment for about 50,000 active duty personnel and civilian workers, with a total economic impact of nearly $12 billion annually.
Young said he’s not an economist and he’s more focused on what the ships will bring to America’s defense.
He pointed out the new vessels, which have water-jet propulsion instead of propellers and a rudder, can cruise at about 40 knots, compared to less than 30 knots for a cruiser or destroyer.
“It’s a Jet Ski with guns. I like that,” Young said.
The ships also are smaller, about 3,000 tons displacement compared to about 10,000 tons for a cruiser and far less expensive per vessel.
Young said each Littoral Combat Ship costs about $400 million, about one-fourth the cost of a destroyer.
And they can operate in water too shallow for traditional warships, which will contribute to their missions of surface warfare, anti-submarine warfare and detecting and eliminating underwater mines.
Young arrived at Mayport in 2014 and had no facilities for the ships and only about 30 people on his staff.
“When I got here, I was in command of an empty lot,” he said.
Since then, the squadron’s staff has grown to about 600 sailors and civilians who work in a 67,000-square-foot headquarters building at Mayport.
The first two of the ships, the USS Milwaukee and USS Detroit, arrived at Mayport last year and have since been conducting training and testing operations, Young said.
That included an operation that led last summer to news reports of underwater earthquakes off the coast of Daytona Beach.
Young said there weren’t any earthquakes. It was the Navy detonating explosives in the water near one of the new ships to test how well it would survive an attack.
“It was a fun summer,” he said.
The fleet operations will continue to expand with the opening next year of facilities for the ships’ modular weapons systems and what Young called a “virtual training facility,” where crews will learn how to operate their ship and its systems on computer-based simulators.
“It’s like a video game. The sailors love it,” he said.
By the end of 2018, four more of the ships will be at Mayport and eventually, the Navy plans to have all 12 vessels planned for the East Coast LCS fleet at Mayport, Young said, bringing about 2,000 officers, sailors, civilian employees and their families who will make North Florida their home.
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