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Port Commission $9259!
MeetingMW

Port of Seattle Hearing Tuesday 10 March 2015

Testimony of Rear Admiral John W. Lockwood, USCG, ret.

Madam Chair and Committee members, good afternoon. My name is John
Lockwood, and I am here today representing Vigor Industrial, 3 large group of
shipyards and marine fabrication facilities in Washington State, and the Seattle
Marine Business Coalition, of which I am president. The Seattle Marine Business
Coalition numbers over 60 small and large marine-related businesses in Seattle.

I made similar comments at a previous hearing, and I reiterate, the Port of Seattle

is to be commended for entering into a lease of Terminal 5 with Foss Maritime.

Your actions are squarely in concert with the Port's Century Agenda and the Port's

mission to champion and enable new opportunities in support of Seattle's

maritime industry. The lease is allowing Foss to utilize a portion of inactive
Terminal 5 on the West Waterway at the entrance of the Duwamish River with

Elliot Bay.

Today, I have new news to add to the discussion. I am pleased to report that the
Port's lease to Foss is already creating dozens of new family wage jobs. Vigor is
building what are called breasting barges that will be used to safely moor the
Polar Pioneer at T5. Seattle's Seaport Steel provided steel plate and forming and
cutting activities to us worth almost a quarter of a million dollars. Thirty six skilled
Vigor craftsmen and women are building the barges at our shipyard in Tacoma.
That, we feel, is a good signal for the brand new Seaport Alliance, to be partnering
on such projects between Seattle and Tacoma maritime industry companies.
Paint and preparation subcontractors on this project number another 20+ jobs.
Altogether, more than 60 new family wage jobs have been created for this single
project. That represents more than half the folks in this room this afternoon. As
we used to say back east, that's not chopped liver. And, these jobs are an
important leading indicator of the much larger total number of jobs that will be
created by Foss's full and complete utilization of the lease.

I work in a shipyard that has been an icon of Seattle for 99 years. First Todd and

now Vigor have employed thousands upon thousands of our citizens to build and

repair ships and watercraft of all types at our Harbor Island site. We look forward
to continuing to provide those critical, well paying, family wage jobs and an
equally important economic contribution to our City, King County, and the State
of Washington.

I urge you not to be distracted by interests that apparently believe these jobs are

not relevant or important to an all but vanishing middle class in Seattle. We are
the welders, riggers, electricians, pipefitters, QA, and so many other hard-working

men and women in the maritime trades. We produce. We fabricate. We
manufacture. We build. We repair. We keep the waterfront and our facilities safe.
We are responsible stewards of the environment.

We applaud your standing tall and working to keep the maritime industry viable

in the Port of Seattle.

Thank you.