Photo By Troy Miller | To increase the Navy’s capability and capacity so for the Fleet can be ready to...... read more read more
With world events constantly changing, the U.S. Navy needs to change as well to continue to conduct its mission of protecting America at sea. Alongside its allies and partners, the Navy defends freedom, preserves economic prosperity, and keeps the seas open and free. The United States is engaged in long-term competition. To defend American interests around the globe, the U.S. Navy must remain prepared to execute its timeless role, as directed by Congress and the President.
"Navy leadership is looking at everything through a warfighting lens, and so must we. The time is now to increase the Navy’s capability and capacity so we can be ready to surge effectively," said Naval Sea Systems (NAVSEA) Commander Vice Adm. James Downey.
One change NAVSEA made to support this effort was aligning all four public naval shipyards to have a senior naval officer as the Engineering and Planning Department Head (Code 200). It was not uncommon for the public shipyards to have a civilian employee in this role prior to the change.
“I think part of assigning a Captain to lead Code 200 is to help us challenge what processes we use today; what metrics we look at; and whether or not we can change, amend, or remove burdensome processes – those which overwhelmingly influence success for mechanics on the waterfront,” said NNSY’s Planning and Engineering Officer Capt. Jonathan Gandy. “Plus, naval officers who lead in shipyards have lived on both sides of the fence – as a Sailor on ships or submarines, as well as in various naval shipyard leadership roles where civilians carry the weight of successful work execution on which the Fleet so desperately depends. Our NNSY military leadership have the potential and the obligation to strengthen communication, relationships and workflow between the Fleet and our civilian shipyard employees.”
Up until recently, Gandy was NNSY’s Production Resource Officer (Code 900) for approximately 15 months where he was in charge of the majority of the shipyard shops that train and equip the mechanics to perform their duties to return the ships and submarines to the active fleet ready to support the Navy’s mission.
“Capt. Gandy brings an experience and perspective not only from his time at prior commands, but also from his time here at NNSY as Code 900,” said Norfolk Naval Shipyard Commander Capt. Jip Mosman. “He has a strong desire to work on changing how we do business, not for the sake of change, but for improving results. His focus on people, the processes, and the deliverables will most certainly help Code 200 be the best that it can be in support of our mission.”
The entities that today form Code 200 can trace their origin back to 1866, though the department title or designation has changed and evolved in the years since. Until 1993, the individual who led what is today’s Engineering and Planning Department was a military officer, the last being Capt. Robert P. Schack. He turned over to the late Laurence Dutton, a former 82nd Airborne paratrooper, who became the first civilian to lead Code 200 and retired in January 2009 with 46 years of service at NNSY. Since then, Code 200’s department head has continued to be a senior civilian employee until March 31st when Gandy became the Engineering and Planning Officer.
The Engineering and Planning Department is the organization that provides the technical direction for the mechanics to perform the work on the submarines and aircraft carriers at the shipyard. One of the functions of Code 200 is to provide task group instructions, often referred to by their acronym TGIs, to the mechanics before starting the task they are assigned to do. Code 200 also plays a pivotal role as the aircraft carrier planning yard, a capacity in which NNSY influences the modernization and upkeep work on aircraft carriers on both East and West Coasts.
“Code 200 is involved in all the different overhaul and repair efforts on the aircraft carriers and submarines at the shipyard for maintenance, repair and modernization,” said Gandy. “In addition, we go beyond the shipyard gates to conduct emergent repairs on ships and submarines on deployment and even augment our private yard partners who do work on amphibious ships. A recent high-profile example is when the shipyard sent a flyaway team to Souda Bay, Greece to repair the damage sustained by the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) following a collision with the merchant vessel, the Besiktas-M, on February 12th. Engineers from Code 200 worked side-by-side with mechanics to return a Navy capital asset back on mission.”
Although the future isn’t always clear, one thing is for certain. Code 200 will do its part to the best of its abilities to ensure ships and submarines are delivered back to the fleet on time and ready for tasking.
| Date Taken: | 05.06.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 05.08.2025 10:35 |
| Story ID: | 497163 |
| Location: | PORTSMOUTH, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 67 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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