Trump's Navy fleet plan could boost Bath Iron Works

File photo / Bath Iron Works A deckhouse is lifted into place at Bath Iron Works in this file photo of a Zumwalt-class destroyer under construction at the Bath shipyard.

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Bath Iron Works could benefit from President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to increase the number of ships in the U.S. Navy to 350.

The Navy’s current 30-year shipbuilding plan would increase the size of the Navy to 308 ships from approximately 270 now.

In one of his final campaign stops before the Nov. 8 election, Trump told a crowd of people gathered in Lisbon that under his administration the “rebuilding of our military will be a nationwide effort from Bath Iron Works to Portsmouth and Norfolk Naval shipyards, to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and all around the country,” The Times Record reported.

BIW could stand the work. In September, BIW lost its bid for a $110.29 million contract that was awarded to Eastern Shipbuilding Group Inc. of Panama City, Fla., to build the first of a new fleet of offshore patrol cutters for the U.S. Coast Guard. BIW subsequently announced it will be cutting a combined 160 jobs — a combination of 30 layoffs and 130 reductions through retirements, transfers, resignations and cancelled job postings — although the company said the cutbacks were part of ongoing cost-cutting efforts, not a result of the lost Coast Guard bid. In October, BIW announced it planned to lay off 19 electricians.

BIW is undergoing further transitions with the retirement, announced in November, of Frederick J. Harris, BIW’s president for the past three years. Dirk A. Lesko, who has worked at BIW for 26 years, was appointed president, effective Jan. 1, 2017.