Portsmouth Naval Shipyard has a new commander

Courtesy / U.S. Navy via Facebook Navy Capt. Daniel W. Ettlich addresses an audience attending his installation Friday as commander of Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.

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By Staff

Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, the sprawling Kittery facility that employs nearly 4,000 civilian Mainers, has a new commander.

U.S. Navy Capt. Daniel W. Ettlich became the 86th leader of the shipyard Friday, succeeding Capt. David S. Hunt in a white-uniform ceremony attended by U.S. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Maggie Hassan, D-N.H.

Hunt had served as commander of the 219-year-old shipyard since 2016. During that time, he’s overseen $338 million in critical infrastructure upgrades at the facility, according to a news release.

Ettlich previously worked as a military deputy for shipyard operations at the Navy’s Sea Systems Command in Washington, D.C. A native of Oregon who grew up in California, he joined the Navy in 1993 while attending the University of San Diego.

Portsmouth Naval Shipyard performs upgrades and repairs of Navy submarines. Its 2018 economic impact was $882 million, according to data released earlier this year.

The shipyard employed a total of 7,000 civilians, whose payroll last year amounted to $548 million. The military payroll was just over $44 million.

Sited on 300 acres across a group of islands in the Piscataqua River, Portsmouth is the Navy’s oldest continuously operating shipyard. The yard had been claimed as part of New Hampshire for decades and as recently as 2006, despite a 2001 U.S. Supreme Court decision supporting Maine's jurisdiction.