In his last assignment, Rear Adm. Kavon Hakimzadeh commanded the USS Eisenhower Strike Group in the Red Sea. It was one of the busiest engagements of any carrier group since World War II.
As part of his new job, Hakimzadeh is now in charge of shepherding the carrier through Norfolk Naval Shipyard. It’s a daunting task.
Ships have often lingered in the yard months after their deadline. In 2024, the Government Accountability Office found that carrier strike groups were on time with their maintenance phases only 20 percent of the time. USS Eisenhower entered the yard in January and Hakimzadeh predicts it will leave the yard earlier than its spring deadline.
“Our goal here is to beat that timeline,” he said. “And I'm happy to say that publicly, our goal is to, is to beat the scheduled timeline. And you will, you will hear us celebrate it when it happens.”
Hakimzadeh took over as commander of Norfolk Naval Shipyard Aug. 8. Typically, the 258-year-old shipyard has been commanded by a captain. Under a two-year pilot project, the base will be run by a captain, but the admiral will oversee maintenance and two captains will oversee nuclear-powered submarines and carriers.
At a time when Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has called for reducing the number of top officers, the Navy is using Norfolk to test whether appointing admirals to its four public shipyards can be enough to shorten the maintenance time for its increasingly aging fleet.
“The idea being that a flag officer has a little bit more barrier removal oomph, if you will, a little authority to be able to remove barriers, with at least a higher threshold for pushback from higher level,” he said.
Hakimzadeh will also report to Fleet Forces, while the nation’s other three public shipyards will continue to report to NAVSEA.
Norfolk handles exclusively carriers and submarines, having someone with his background can “provide the 10,000 plus employees here at Norfolk Naval Shipyard with an operational perspective of what they're doing and why it's so important,” he said.
After arriving earlier this summer, Hakimzadeh spent most of his time talking to shipyard workers and examining the process.
“Right now, the model for a mechanic in the shipyard is: I work a little. I wait a lot for paper, for approvals, for whatever material, and then I do a little bit more work, and I leave. I leave for the day somewhat dissatisfied with what I've got accomplished over the course of a shift,” he said.
The admiral believes he can speed up the process by reorganizing the teams.
“I am now creating multi-disciplinary teams that involve a mechanic, mechanic assistance, a supervisor, supply engineer, quality, quality assurance, on the same team,” he said.
Hakimzadeh also plans to group workers so they can finish one vessel before moving on to the next one.
The Navy’s maintenance backlog has been building for more than a decade. Roughly one-third of the submarine fleet is unavailable because of the backlogs. According to the Government Accountability Office, the deferred maintenance backlog for surface ships alone totaled $1.7 billion in 2021, grew to $2.3 billion in 2022, with a small dip to $2.0 billion in 2023. As the fleet ages, the maintenance issues are expected to increase. At the same time, public and private shipyards have lost staff to retirement.
“Our workforce has gotten a lot younger. We've kind of lost a series of skill sets over the past couple of decades, a significant drop,” Hakimzadeh said.
Hakimzadeh also plans to reorganize the workforce “to result in more focus on production than on administration,” reducing the number of administrative positions and increasing the number of skilled trades working on the docks, he said.
Huntington Ingalls Industries furloughed nearly 500 workers, mostly administrative, in May. Hakimzadeh does not expect either layoffs or a hiring binge at Norfolk Naval. The idea is to convince experienced shipbuilders to advance in their craft instead of going into management.
“If you want to stay and be a master machinist and be paid for being a master machinist, then we want to be able to open up that opportunity,” he said.
He is confident that the Navy will provide money to boost wages for both highly-skilled trades and the bottom of the payscale to attract new hires. But his main focus is on clearing away red tape and increasing the efficiency of America’s oldest shipyard.
