NORTH KINGSTOWN, RI—State tax breaks, infrastructure spending and job training are helping General Dynamics Electric Boat gain significant submarine construction work for the next several years. President Jeffrey Geiger last week told the Providence Journal that the company hopes to create 1,300 new Rhode Island manufacturing jobs over the next decade.
Gathering with political and union leaders on the sun-baked field where Electric Boat plans to break ground on a new factory this summer, Geiger described the defense contractor’s 1.3 million-square-foot, $800-million multi-year Quonset expansion in grand terms.
The project “will allow us to deliver what the Navy is counting on us to deliver,” Geiger says. “The state’s partnership will also help us to secure additional work in the future by improving our capacity and competitive position, and strengthen Quonset Point’s standing as the manufacturing crown jewel of the submarine industrial base."
