SNAME honors Ingalls Shipbuilding’s Dave Whiddon

Huntington Ingalls Industries (NYSE:HII) announced today that David Whiddon, chief engineer at HII’s Ingalls Shipbuilding division, has been named the 2011 recipient of the prestigious William M. Kennedy Award. The award was presented to Mr. Whiddon by the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (SNAME) on November 18 during its annual meeting in Houston.

The William M. Kennedy award was established to honor a member of the shipbuilding industry for outstanding service and contribution in the development of systems and planning applying to shipbuilding and repair. The award was first issued in 1981 to Louis Chirillo, who was considered one of the leaders in the industry to drive process improvements from engineering through production to improve production efficiency and reduce cost. Mr. Whiddon is the 27th person to receive the award.

“David’s vast expertise in the engineering field plays a critical role in the success of Ingalls Shipbuilding’s production planning and ship construction process,” said Rick Spaulding, vice president, planning, Ingalls Shipbuilding. “His 40-plus years of experience have been instrumental in developing process improvements across the entire shipbuilding industry. As chief engineer at Ingalls, David is responsible for ensuring that the engineering products that are being provided to production are provided in a timely and accurate manner. He takes this position seriously and works hard to get to the root cause of issues and to get them corrected. David is well deserving of this award.”

Mr. Whiddon has been in the industry as both a customer and a shipbuilder for more than 40 years. During his career he has overseen the construction and conversion of vessels for the U.S. Navy and held positions production and engineering. He has served as the chair of the National Ship Research Program (NSRP) Executive Control Board (ECB) and is currently a member of the ECB representing Ingalls’ Avondale Shipyard. Through his career and especially as a member of the NSRP ECB, Mr. Whiddon has been instrumental in identification of ship construction process improvements and obtaining funding to develop these ideas into real solutions, many of which have been implemented across the industry.

November 22, 2011