REP. MIKE THOMPSON ANNOUNCES $2 MILLION AWARD FOR MARE ISLAND SHIPYARD CONTRACT
Washington, DC - U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson (CA-5) today announced a $1.9 million National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) contract for Mare Island Dry Docks, LLC. The contract is for the dry docking and ship repairs of the RONALD H. BROWN research vessel and will create 45 to 50 jobs on the island.
"This is another economic win to Solano County, the City of Vallejo, and Mare Island" said Thompson. "The acquisition of the RONALD H. BROWN contract is another big step towards Mare Island reclaiming its status as a center of economic activity in the Bay Area."
The ship is named in honor of Ron Brown, the late Secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce, who died in a plane crash while on an official trade mission to Croatia. The ship was commissioned in 1997 to support NOAA's oceanic and atmospheric research projects.
"We are honored to have the opportunity to work on the Ronald H. Brown research vessel," said Christina Snyder, Executive Vice President of Mare Island Dry Dock LLC. "More importantly, we feel privileged to be a part of the effort to renew Mare Island."
Thompson is committed to securing opportunities to increase shipping traffic in the Strait and maritime commerce in the region. The NOAA contract, on the heels of the USCG's POLAR STAR contract, shows that the talent and the resources exist on Mare Island to achieve those goals.
The RONALD H. BROWN, the largest vessel in NOAA's fleet, is an AGOR 24 Class ship weighing 3250 tons, 274 feet in length and can travel a maximum speed of 15 knots. The ship is equipped with state-of-the-art instrumentation to study the atmosphere, including Doppler weather radar. It has 4,100 square feet of laboratories, to include a computer and electronics lab, a biochemical lab and a wet lab.
One of the vessel's most notable assignments was to respond to and assess the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010. This past April, the vessel finished a mission in Chile to recover and redeploy the Stratus Ocean Reference Station, a buoy that provides ongoing climate-quality records of surface meteorology.
Mare Island Dry Docks is the RONALD H. BROWN's next port of call.
Congressman Mike Thompson is proud to represent California's 5th Congressional District, which includes all or part of Contra Costa, Lake, Napa, Solano and Sonoma Counties. He is a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Rep. Thompson is also a member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition and chairs the bipartisan, bicameral Congressional Wine Caucus.
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