Right now the shipyard's senior civilian is in a reflective mood.

It's the Friday afternoon before Nuclear Engineering and Planning (Code 2300) Director Jim Kenny's final week at Norfolk Naval Shipyard (NNSY). After 35 years devoted to NNSY and Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, Kenny is gearing up for the next phase of his career at Naval Sea Systems Command. His office walls are unusually bare, and sealed cardboard boxes underscore how time grows short at the very facility where his career began. But if the boxes are packed, his mind is absolutely overflowing as he considers his shipyard experiences, and his appreciation for leading NNSY's nuclear engineering and planning team since June 2014.

Growing up on the Great Lakes in Michigan, Kenny's love for the aquatic was stoked by watching The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau. A pivotal moment in his late adolescence occurred with seeing a pamphlet in his high school chemistry class touting the Florida Institute of Technology's ocean engineering majors.

"My entire life I just wanted to do something associated with the ocean," said Kenny. "So I took all the entrance exams, and sight unseen, I went down and essentially got into this field, which was ultimately ocean engineering."

After graduating during the economic downturn of the early 1980s, Kenny's career options in his field of study were between Huntington Ingalls, Mare Island Naval Shipyard and Norfolk Naval Shipyard. Thanks to the appeal of a few friends being familiar with Hampton Roads, he joined the team here. He recalled thinking, "'I'll do this gig for five years.' That was 1982."

So while Kenny was "terrible at estimating his career path" by his own submission, his lifelong intellectual curiosity was hooked by the diversity and complexity of the shipyard's work. In the early 1980s nuclear cruisers were going through mid-life overhauls, the Los Angeles-class submarine force was coming into its own, and Nimitz-class supercarriers were young and few.

"Not unlike what we've recently gone through, it was a time of unprecedented volume of work, and unprecedented time of growth in the population of the workforce," said Kenny. "I'd lived that dream before and realized how important it is to give people responsibility and authority."

During his tenure as the Nuclear Engineering and Planning Director, Kenny has helped hundreds of shipyard employees by not only coaching and mentoring, but allowing them to shadow him. "My job is not paper, it's not a weld. If I didn't spend the bulk of my time investing in the shipyard folks, then I wasn't doing my job. My products are people and plant."

Kenny has never shied away from challenging shipyarders by asking the tough questions about the business of ship repair. He wants the variables, including the worst case scenarios, considered and planned for accordingly. Conversely, Kenny is quick to offer a thumbs-up if he thinks shipyarders are on the right path to achieving mission success.

"Challenge leads to breaking the status quo. Challenge and conflict lead to creative tension that inspires and creates new results," he pointed out. "And if you don't encourage, then they'll never try again. This is hard, demanding work. The grind of it can break you down if you don't get some joy and encouragement about what you do."

He's personally found a lot to be joyful and encouraged about in his second tour at NNSY. Promising in 2014 that his job was being the "cultivator of potential in people and plant," he now looks at the accomplishments since in those two vital areas. In the midst of onboarding more than 5,000 employees in the past three years, the shipyard is also getting the waterfront amenities to ensure its vital future.

"We've brought Pier 5 on service, we've completed construction of our [Controlled Industrial Facility], we've cleaned up the shipyard, we have gotten numerous [Military Construction Projects] authorized and advanced," said Kenny. He points to one of the few remaining items on his wall, MILCON P-614. "That dramatically upgrades the utilities distribution service in the small docks, which is vital to our mission."

In the midst of all these facility upgrades, the shipyard has held its steady drumbeat of accomplishing ship repair and maintenance.

"We figured out how to overhaul our freezers and still sell popsicles," Kenny said.

Throughout his time as Code 2300, he has been steadily engaged with Naval Facilities, Public Works Department Portsmouth on facility issues.

"How do we collaborate to invest in this national asset to ensure it's around for another 250 years? I feel good that we've come a long ways. We've got a good set of people in place to work on those things."

As he assumes his new position as Director of Marine Engineering for NAVSEA 05Z, he said, "my primary goal is how do I take the experiences and the needs of the Fleet today, and the artisans and engineers that advance those platforms and keep them running. How can I help from the technical warrant holder, from the design agent's perspective? How can I bring that 35 years of experience as the representative for the folks out in the field to bear on projects like the new Ohio-replacement class, the Columbia class? I feel a strong correlation back to the shipyard, and I feel blessed that I bring a shipyard perspective into my new organization."

Some of the most memorable moments in his career have been just in the past year. In describing one in particular Kenny reveals his unique ability to drive home the importance of what others may take for granted. While USS La Jolla has been at the shipyard since February 2015, the extraordinary process of converting it into a moored training ship isn't lost on him for a moment. "To stand on the caisson at Dry Dock 3 here in November the night before we undocked the La Jolla, and look back at what we've done, converting an active submarine to a land-based prototype, and realize the labors of our men and women will result in that platform never seeing a dry dock for the next 20 to 30 years. It's awesome!"

He's also tremendously encouraged by the shipyard undocking USS Rhode Island (SSBN 740) two days early, as well as finishing USS Harry S Truman (CVN 75)'s availability early.

"It was an incredible occasion to see that ship leave Norfolk Naval Shipyard's Pier 5," he said, speaking of the latter. "In our business, you get to relish that for about a day, if you're lucky. And then you hunker down for the next one. There's always going to be a problem in the Fleet that needs to be repaired, and we're going to be the ones to do that."

He added, "We are part of 36,000 people in the public shipyards who do this kind of work. We are wholly unique. We've got to honor that and respect that. We are the few and the ought-to-be bloody proud. When all's said and done, we accomplish things as a group that would be wholly impossible as individuals. What we do in the shipyard, what our artisans do, are truly national treasures."

For more information, visit www.navy.mil, www.facebook.com/usnavy, or www.twitter.com/usnavy.

For more news from Norfolk Naval Shipyard, visit www.navy.mil/.