WASHINGTON — The Navy has kicked off a new public-private partnership with advanced manufacturing company Hadrian, and opened a new facility in Cherokee, Ala., that will make components for both the Virginia and Columbia-class submarine programs.
The new facility, known as Factory 4, is the first of three facilities that Hadrian plans to open that will produce systems for the maritime industrial base, the result of merging more than $1.5 billion in private capital and $900 million in government funding from the Navy.
Secretary of the Navy John Phelan said that this public-private partnership is a “novel transaction” that ensures the service is investing in “outcomes, not promises.”
“The Department of the Navy has a stake in the outcome, and American taxpayers will benefit from our and their success,” Phelan said today at the ribbon-cutting event opening the facility. “That alignment matters, because we are done with a system that rewards process over delivery.”
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“Industry has tried to meet us before,” Phelan added. “We have not always made it easy. That is changing. We are breaking down silos, simplifying how we do business, and moving acquisition to a more urgent footing with one goal: putting the war fighter first.”
Phelan and lawmakers at the event stressed that the partnership aligns with President Donald Trump’s “Golden Fleet” effort that seeks to drive US Navy maritime superiority — an initiative that they say will depend on reviving the industrial base.
“This is going to build modules for the strongest, most advanced submarines in the world, which will support this administration’s goal of unleashing a maritime golden age,” Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., said at the ceremony.
The Factory 4 facility is expected to start producing components like “sequence-critical and commodity components” such as parts, assemblies, and finished products for submarine construction by the end of 2026.
Additionally, the facility is expected to be fully operational within two years, and is estimated to support up to 1,000 jobs, according to Hadrian. Training up this workforce is heavily dependent on automating technically challenging steps in the production process, Hadrian founder and CEO Chris Power told reporters on Thursday.
“We want to be about 80 percent automated and make it simple enough that we can train, like in our other factories, a new workforce in 30 days or less,” Power said.
Delays have plagued the Virginia- and Columbia-class submarines, and the Navy first reported in 2024 that multiple shipbuilding programs were facing similar issues due to shipyard workforce and supply chain challenges.
