MARINETTE, Wis., June 28, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Secretary of the Navy, The Honorable Richard V. Spencer, visited the Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyard, the home of Freedom-Variant Littoral Combat Ship production. The Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT)-led Team Freedom has delivered five ships to the U.S. Navy to date, with two more scheduled for delivery this year.

"It is truly great to see what is being produced up here with the American worker," Secretary Spencer said during a shipyard tour. "We're producing a ship that based on price is exceptional. We're also going to increase the capabilities of these ships and they're going to be an integral part of the small surface combatants."

Spencer visited to view the modernized production line and tour LCS 13, the future USS WICHITA. Over the past 10 years, the Freedom-variant industry team invested more than $120 million to modernize the shipyard, hire more than 1,000 people and train a new workforce. This private investment optimized the shipyard for serial production at a rate of two Littoral Combat Ships per year.

The Lockheed Martin-led LCS team is comprised of shipbuilder Fincantieri Marinette Marine, naval architect Gibbs & Cox, and more than 800 suppliers in 42 states. The LCS is the Navy's most affordable surface combatant shipbuilding program.

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For additional information, visit our website: www.lockheedmartin.com/lcs

About Lockheed Martin
Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs approximately 100,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services.

About Fincantieri Marinette Marine
Fincantieri is one of the world's largest shipbuilding groups and number one by diversification and innovation. It is a leader in cruise ship design and construction and a reference player in all high‐tech shipbuilding industry's sectors, from naval to offshore vessels, from high‐complexity special vessels and ferries to mega‐yachts, ship repairs and conversions, systems and components production and after‐sales services.

Having built more than 7,000 vessels in over 230 years of maritime history, and with around 19,400 employees and 20 shipyards on four continents, today Fincantieri is the leading Western shipbuilder. It has among its clients many of the world's major cruise operators, the Italian and the U.S. Navy, in addition to several foreign navies, and it is partner of some of the main European defense companies within supranational programs. www.fincantieri.com

Fincantieri operates in the United States through its subsidiary Fincantieri Marine Group (FMG). Fincantieri Marine Group serves government customers, including the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard, with its three shipyards (Fincantieri Marinette Marine, Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding and Fincantieri ACE Marine) all located in the Great Lakes Region.

About Gibbs & Cox
Gibbs & Cox, the nation's leading independent maritime solutions firm specializing in naval architecture, marine engineering and design, is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. The company, founded in 1929, has provided designs for nearly 80 percent of the current U.S. Navy surface combatant fleet; approaching 7,000 naval and commercial ships have been built to Gibbs & Cox designs.

SOURCE Lockheed Martin