BIW’s former president takes a new job, north of the border

Courtesy / General Dynamics Bath Iron Works Dirk Lesko, shown here discussing the pandemic in a 2020 YouTube video, resigned from BIW is April and will become head of a Canadian shipbuilder in September.

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By Jessica Hall

Dirk Lesko, the former president of Bath Iron Works who left the shipyard abruptly earlier this year, has been named the next president of Canada’s Irving Shipbuilding Inc., which builds warships for the Royal Canadian Navy.

Lesko’s appointment is effective Sept. 1. He succeeds Kevin Mooney, who resigned as Irving president last month for personal reasons.

Lesko left BIW in April, after serving as president for more than five years and working at the Bath shipyard since 1990. His departure came within days of the appointment of a new Navy overseer, and was followed by a federal report criticizing Navy supervision of contracted yards including BIW.

Lesko also had agreed to an unscheduled cost-of-living wage increase for its largest union before his departure, media reports said.

Now, Lesko will lead Irving, based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which is partnered with the Canadian government and was awarded a $25 billion contract in 2011 to build the Canadian Navy’s warships.

Ross Langley, vice chairman of Irving Shipbuilding, will continue as interim president until Lesko, a third-generation shipbuilder, joins in September.

“We are very pleased that Dirk Lesko is joining us as president,” said Jim Irving, co-CEO of parent company J.D. Irving Ltd. “He brings extensive experience in military shipbuilding which will continue to enhance Irving Shipbuilding as Canada’s combatant shipbuilder.”

Lesko was credited with steering BIW through a contentious, 62-day strike by its largest union, the International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers Local S6 in 2020. The union represents about two-thirds of BIW’s 7,400 employees.

Lesko was succeeded at BIW by Gulfstream Aerospace executive Charles Krugh. General Dynamics Corp. (NYSE: GD), which owns BIW, also owns Gulfstream Aerospace, where Krugh served as a vice president.

Irving Shipbuilding, founded in 1959, currently has more than 2,100 employees. It expects to have more than 3,300 by 2025 as the building of the larger Canadian surface combatant warships gets underway.