Matt Needy started at Newport News Shipbuilding in 1987 as an engineering co-op student. Nearly four decades later, he is building the Virginia shipyard’s first operation in South Carolina.

Needy is vice president of Charleston Operations for Newport News Shipbuilding, a division of HII, the nation’s largest military shipbuilder. He runs a 45-acre site on the Cooper River in Goose Creek that builds sections of nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers for the Navy, according to HII.

The plant is hiring. On Oct. 27, it will hold a skilled-trades hiring event at SC Works in North Charleston for welders, structural fitters, electricians, pipefitters, machinists and other trades, HII announced Oct. 16. The company says it is hiring hundreds of shipbuilders.

“Our country is counting on us to deliver the ships that protect peace and freedom around the world, and that mission starts right here in the Lowcountry,” Needy said in the announcement.

From Seawolf to strategy

The shipyard hired Needy full time in 1991 as an engineer on the Seawolf-class submarine program. He went on to work in systems engineering, process improvement, manufacturing, the Virginia-class submarine program, fleet services and Navy programs, according to HII.

Before moving south, he was the shipyard’s chief transformation officer, responsible for strategy, companywide improvement efforts and future work including the next-generation attack submarine known as SSN(X) and AUKUS, the security partnership among the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom.

He has a mechanical engineering degree from Clemson University and serves on the Trident Technical College board of trustees, HII says.

Buying a plant

HII announced in December 2024 that it would buy the assets of W International, a Goose Creek fabricator of shipbuilding structures and modules, and named Needy to run the site. The deal closed in January 2025. HII did not disclose terms.

The Post and Courier described W International as troubled, noting a federal whistleblower investigation into potential misspent funds by its leadership. HII said it was not taking on the company’s financial or legal liabilities, the newspaper reported. About 99% of W International’s roughly 500 workers accepted offers to stay.

The state approved job development credits and a $750,000 grant to Berkeley County for building improvements, and HII said it expected to create more than 250 jobs, according to Gov. Henry McMaster’s office.

“Because of the buildings, because of the people that are here, because of the pipelines, because of the state and regional and educational relationships that we already had the foundation of, this became the obvious choice to most rapidly expand capacity and frequency for Newport News,” Needy told SCBIZ in March 2025.

He said the plant builds the habitability module, auxiliary machine room and weapons module for Virginia-class submarines, and the auxiliary machine room and weapons module for Columbia-class submarines.

Spreading the work

Needy has said the company’s existing yards cannot meet the Navy’s demand on their own.

“We no longer can just rely on the yards that we have in place,” Needy told WCSC Live 5 in January. “We’ve got to use distributed shipbuilding.”

Besides Goose Creek, HII says it is working with 23 shipyards and fabricators outside its traditional labor market to raise output.

The Goose Creek team delivered its first unit within 40 days and beat its 2025 production targets, HII said in January, when the site marked its first year. Live 5 reported that the plant had doubled production and planned to spend about $80 million on facility improvements over the following year.

“You are crucial as we continue to ramp up submarine and carrier shipbuilding,” Rear Adm. Jonathan Rucker, the Navy’s program executive officer for attack submarines, told workers at the anniversary town hall, according to HII.

Needy told Live 5 the company plans to build a pipeline of workers from local schools.

“We’re going to establish pipelines in the high schools and in the community colleges that not only feed this site here, but all the maritime industries around the Charleston region,” he said.

In March 2025, Needy told SCBIZ he did not expect the plant to reach full-rate production until 2027 and 2028, when it would ship fully outfitted modules rather than bare steel structures. He said demand for the Navy’s ships was unlike anything in his career.

“In my 34 years here with Newport News and the Huntington Ingalls Industries, I’ve never seen demand like the need for the ships that we build today,” he said.