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Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus

The Commercial Club of Chicago

Chicago, IL

25 October 2016

Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today. It’s always

a pleasure to take the time to talk with community leaders, to

talk to you about the hard work your Sailors and Marines are

doing all over the world. The City of Chicago and the United

States Navy have a historically strong connection – and I’m not

just talking about the world-famous Navy Pier. The Navy has

woven itself into the fabric of this region - we’re your neighbors,

your customers and your friends. Every enlisted Sailor goes

through initial training just a few miles up the road at Great

Lakes – those Sailors and their families leave this city with an

appreciation for its dynamic nature, great food, generous

hospitality, and wonderful people. And that affection is returned

by the City of Chicago.

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With programs like your own Veterans Employment Initiative,

Chicago’s and the Commercial Club’s dedication to the military

and the Department of the Navy is very much appreciated.

Thank you for everything you do.

I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but there is an election

going on. This election will bring a new administration, so I

think that now is a very appropriate time to take measure of

what we in the current administration have accomplished in our

Navy and Marine Corps – institutions founded on tradition,

continuity and legacy, but also on change and adaptability.

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To quote a former CNO, “Our Navy has both a tradition and a

future, and we look with pride and confidence in both

directions.” So that is what I’m going to do today – give you the

“State of the Navy” – to demonstrate how the actions we’ve

taken over the past seven and a half years will ensure that the

future of our Navy and Marine Corps will be as bright as its

storied past.

In his poem, “The Laws of the Navy,” British Admiral Ronald

Hopwood wrote, “On the strength of one link in the cable,

dependeth the might of the chain. Who knows when thou

mayest be tested, so live that thou barest the strain.”

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And we’ve been tested. Among the challenges, when I came

into office, we had a shrinking fleet in a shrinking economy; we

had our hands tied by sequestration, which continues to hang

around and limit our ability to plan; oil dependency and

volatility threatened operations and training and it was costing

us lives; and bad laws and an antiquated personnel system

limited our ability to attract and keep America’s most talented

young people. All of this happened during rising threats, a far

more complicated world and an ever-increasing demand for

naval forces.

And yet, I am confident that when history looks back at our

tenure, it will find not only that we bore the strain, but that we

fixed the cable, and set the course for the addition of many

strong links in the years and decades ahead.

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Each of you has a handout that lists a small selection of the

many achievements we’ve made across a range of priorities –

and they are all important and meaningful. But today, I’m going

to focus on three of these priorities: shipbuilding, energy and

people.

There’s a saying that: “Eighty percent of success is showing

up.” Since I’ve shown up longer than any Secretary of the Navy

following World War I – seven and a half years now – I guess I

could claim some success just on longevity. But that shouldn’t

be the standard, and is not the standard, for me or for our Navy

and Marine Corps – the standard has to be and is much, much

higher.

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We’ve never just shown up. From when John Paul Jones

defeated the British in their own backyard in 1779, to when U.S.

Marines planted our flag atop Mt. Suribachi in 1945, to when

President Kennedy’s naval quarantine of Cuba averted nuclear

war in 1962, to when President Obama relied on carrier-based

naval aviation as his only strike option against ISIS for 54 days

in 2015, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, uniquely and without

lapse, have provided presence – around the globe, around the

clock.

And to take this one step farther, not don’t “just show up” –

we’re already there.

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That unrivaled advantage – on, above, beneath, and from the sea

ensures stability, reassures allies, deters adversaries, and gives

our nation’s leaders options in times of crisis. I call the Navy

and Marine Corps “America’s away team.” We are the away

team because never get a home game, and we don’t want a home

game. Sailors and Marines, equally in times of peace and war,

are not just in the right place at the right time, but in the right

place all the time. There is no next best thing to being there.

In every case, from high-end combat to irregular warfare to

humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, our naval assets get

there faster, we stay on station longer, we bring what we need

with us, and, because our ships are sovereign U.S. territory, we

don’t have to ask any other country’s permission to get the job

done.

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To get that presence, we have to have grey hulls on the horizon.

Quantity has a quality all its own. To say that a Navy is too

focused on building ships is to admit an ignorance of its

purpose. We are the Navy. We need ships, and we need enough

ships to accomplish every mission we’re assigned. So I made

shipbuilding one of my top priorities, and we’ve dramatically

reversed the decline in our fleet.

On September 11th 2001 the Navy had 316 ships. Seven years

later, by 2008, despite one of the greatest military build-ups in

history, we were down to 278. During that seven years, only 41

ships were contracted – not enough to keep the fleet from

shrinking and not enough to keep our shipyards going.

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I’ve been in office over seven years now, so it’s an absolute

comparison. In the seven years since 2009, we’ve contracted for

86 ships, and we’ve done so while increasing aircraft purchases

by 35% - all with a smaller top line.

Our efforts, with the strong support of Congress, guarantee that

– just with the ships under contract today – we will get to 300

ships by 2019 and our currently assessed need of 308 ships by

2021. It takes a long time to build a fleet. It takes a long time to

reverse the consequences of a shrinking fleet. But, by

implementing basic business practices like firm, fixed-price

contracts, multi-year buys and stable requirements, we increased

the numbers while driving down costs on virtually every class of

ship.

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For example, the average construction cost of our Littoral

Combat Ship has decreased by nearly 50 percent relative to

those hulls contracted prior to 2009. While the costs have gone

down, the capabilities have gone up. We are upgrading the

design to significantly increase LCS lethality and survivability,

and because of their enhanced counter-surface and counter-

submarine capabilities, contributing to Strike Group operations,

we are re-designating future ships as frigates.

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The Arleigh Burke Class Destroyer (DDG 51) program is

another one of the Navy’s most successful shipbuilding

programs. Sixty-two of these ships are currently operating in

the fleet. Today, we are in the fourth year of a multi-year

procurement, and thanks to competition and also thanks to the

hard work and the talent at our shipyards, the DDG 51

competitive multiyear contract is saving more than $2 billion

over its predecessors.

We’ve enjoyed similar success with our submarines. In April

2014, we awarded the largest contract in Navy history, $18

billion to build 10 Virginia-class attack submarines. These

submarines normally cost $2 billion apiece. This is doing math

in public, but we paid for 9 and we got 10. It’s like having one

of those punch cards: buy nine, get your 10th sub free.

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Finally, we’ve expanded unmanned systems in all domains and

put increased focus on these systems by establishing a Deputy

Assistant Secretary of the Navy for unmanned and an office of

unmanned warfare systems on the Navy staff, N99, designed

specifically to coordinate all unmanned programs. As both our

manned and unmanned platforms join the fleet, we are

equipping them with the most advanced technologies like laser

weapons and soon, electromagnetic railguns. We’ve protected

research and development and science and technology so that

we will continue to have our technological edge. I don’t ever

want to send Sailors and Marines into a fair fight.

Our efforts to rebuild the fleet have benefited more than just our

Navy and Marine Corps. From Marinette, Wisconsin to Mobile,

Alabama and from Bath Maine, to San Diego, California -

American workers build, maintain and repair our platforms.

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Tens of thousands of skilled laborers are employed by our public

shipyards. Four-hundred thousand U.S. jobs are directly or

indirectly supported by the maritime industry, and 41 million

jobs are linked to international seaborne trade. For every job

created in shipbuilding, almost 3 other jobs are created in other

parts of the economy, and since 2009, we’ve created 8,000 new

jobs in our shipyards – these are American manufacturing jobs

with an average salary of more $75 thousand. The overall

impact is so great that the shipbuilding industry produced more

than $25 billion in labor income and more than $37 billion in

GDP in 2015.

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And those ships are needed more than ever before - they protect

the sea lanes across the globe. And through these sea lanes,

90% of world trade, or $9 trillion of goods, travel annually,

sustaining the global economy.

These are facts. As Casey Stengel used to say, “You can look it

up.” The fact is that our focus on shipbuilding has undeniably

produced substantial and tangible results for our Navy and

Marine Corps, for American industry and American workers,

creating jobs across the Nation. It has advanced both our own

economy and the global economy and contributed to

international security in ways that benefit every American.

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Increasing the fleet size, however, is only part of the equation.

We have to have our ships in the right place at the right time, all

the time, to provide presence. And the way we do that with is

by the energy we use.

In 2009, oil had reached $140 a barrel, forcing us to prioritize

overseas operations at the expense of training here at home.

Worst of all, we were losing a Marine in every 50 fuel convoys

in Afghanistan, way too high a price to pay.

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Although the cost per barrel of oil has eased, the price of oil,

over time, is going in only one direction, and that is up. As

recently as the past few days, OPEC announced new

negotiations on supply restrictions to get prices back up. And

while the final outcome remains unknown, for the first time,

Russia has shown a willingness to cooperate. Speaking of

Russia, you only have to look at what Russia did to Ukraine and

in Crimea to see how energy can be used as a weapon.

That is why I took action to re-establish the Department of the

Navy as a world leader in energy innovation – and it was to

make us better warfighters. Our Navy and Marine Corps have

always been on the cutting edge of energy innovation.

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We led the transition from sail to coal, coal to oil, and pioneered

nuclear power for propulsion. In that tradition, it was clear that

we had to lead the transition to alternatives in order to maintain

our edge.

First and foremost, we’ve done this to be better at our jobs – to

be better warfighters – but, we cannot ignore the impacts of

climate change. As new routes open in the Artic, as sea levels

rise, as storms increase in intensity, the Navy and Marine Corps

are the first responders and our responsibilities increase. We

need to also lead in the response to climate change.

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So in 2009, I set a number of very specific, pretty ambitious

energy goals, the most ambitious of which was to have at least

half of naval energy – both ashore and afloat – come from non-

fossil fueled sources by 2020. President Obama reiterated the

shore part of that goal in his 2012 State of the Union Address

saying that Navy would get 50%, or 1 GW of power, from

alternatives by 2020.

So how are we doing? We surpassed our goal ashore last year –

five years early. Today, at our shore installations, we get more

than 1.2 GWs of energy out of our total 2GW requirement, from

alternative sources.

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Since we own a half million acres of land and 117,000 buildings

our accomplishments ashore are important – but we are the

Navy – so I’m happy to say that we are on pace to meet our

goals at sea and in the air too. In just seven years, we

envisioned, tested and deployed the “Great Green Fleet,” a

Strike Group steaming entirely on blended biofuels and nuclear

power.

Our biofuels are “drop-in” fuels, meaning we don’t change a

thing in our engines; they don’t take away land from food

production; and they are cost-competitive with traditional fuels.

Other countries are already following suit, and other industries

are following suit. In August, during our Rim of the Pacific

Exercise, nine other nations were refueled by blended biofuels

and regular fuels.

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In June, I was in the Med on a U.S. destroyer taking Italian

biofuel from an Italian oiler with an Italian frigate on the other

side of the oiler, also taking biofuel.

The geo-strategic example I use is that in Singapore, there is an

oil refinery owned by the Chinese, and right down the road there

is a biofuel refinery owned by the Finns. I don’t want to depend

on China for our fuel in the western Pacific. I want to have an

option, a choice. Biofuels make us more flexible, more agile.

The private sector understands this too. Jet Blue just signed a

10-year contract for biofuels and United, Alaska, Virgin, UPS,

and FedEx are all flying at least part of the time on biofuels.

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There were those who criticized us for the price we paid for a

small test amount of biofuel we purchased in 2012 for our first

demonstration. But these same folks were strangely silent after

we bought operational quantities this year as part of a regular

fuel purchase for less than $2.14 per gallon, a price that is

absolutely competitive with that of traditional fuel.

Biofuels aren’t the only alternatives we have pursued and our

pursuits aren’t exclusive to the Navy. The Marines – who most

of you wouldn’t necessarily think of as ardent environmentalists

– have led the way in other alternatives like kinetic knee-braces.

When they march or walk, which Marines tend to do, the

movement in their legs translates to energy, which they use to

power their radios and GPSs.

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In parallel with these efforts, we have pursued efficiencies –

changing the whole culture of energy consumption in the Navy

and Marine Corps. At the recommendation of a Navy Chief, we

are retrofitting ships with LED lights as they come through the

yards. Just by changing the lightbulbs, we save 20 thousand

gallons of fuel per year per destroyer.

We’ve also invested in technologies like hybrid-electric drives

that enable ships like our big deck amphib, USS Makin Island,

to not only increase on-station time by a third (44 days), but to

bring home about half of her fuel budget.

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Those combined efforts in alternatives and efficiencies have

produced what some considered unimaginable results when we

started. Ashore, we’ve achieved $90 million in savings, $60

million in energy upgrades and 22 million tons of abated CO2,

and along with our work at sea, our energy initiatives as a whole

have contributed to a reduction in oil use by 15% in the Navy

and 60% in the Marine Corps. To be fair, part of that drop for

the Marines is because we’re largely out of two land wars, but

that is clearly not the only reason.

As impressive as these statistics are, and I think they are pretty

impressive, it isn’t the statistics that matter, but rather, how

these statistics influence our ability to provide that presence.

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These efforts have made our SEAL teams stealthier, as they

approach net-zero with power and water consumption; our

Marines more agile, since just by using rollable solar blankets,

they’ve shed 700 pounds of batteries per company that they

don’t have to hump and they don’t have to re-supply; our ships

less vulnerable, due to decreased replenishment requirements,

and our bases more resilient in the face of attacks on our power

grids. These are the real impacts. They give our Navy and

Marine Corps operational flexibility, they make us better

warfighters and they give the United States a strategic

advantage.

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Finally, having the right number and type of ships, and the

means to have them wherever they are needed, whenever they

are needed, still falls short if you don’t have Sailors and Marines

who can offer the diverse perspectives required to solve today’s

complex problems - “perspective” and “diverse” being the

important words.

From one perspective, it is critically important to honor the

people and traditions that have sustained America’s Navy and

Marine Corps for 241 years. One of my great privileges and

responsibilities is to name Navy ships. That is why I’ve named

ships after 9 Medal of Honor Recipients and 2 recipients of the

Navy Cross – individuals who fought, and in many cases died,

in sacrifice for American values.

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From another perspective it is equally important to honor

American values themselves. Our founding fathers set out to

form a “more perfect union,” acknowledging the American

experiment that challenges us to live up to the principles

established in the Declaration of Independence and our

Constitution. That is why, in accordance with the longstanding

naval tradition of establishing new naming conventions for new

classes of ships, and for naming naval support ships for

civilians, I have also named 8 ships in honor of civil rights and

human rights heroes – people like Medgar Evers, Cesar Chavez,

John Louis, Harvey Milk, Earl Warren, Lucy Stone and

Sojourner Truth– Americans who also fought and – in some

cases – who also died pursuing our most sacred values of justice,

equality and freedom.

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One of those ships I named recently, the USNS Robert F.

Kennedy at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, I was

reminded of a George Bernard Shaw quote that Robert Kennedy

often used, “There are those that look at things the way they are,

and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why

not?”

When I became Secretary of the Navy in 2009, there were a lot

of things I encountered that begged the question "why not?” At

that time, openly gay Americans were not allowed to serve in

the military. Why not? In the Navy, women were not permitted

to serve aboard submarines, or in riverine squadrons or in the

Navy SEALS. Why not? In the Marines, women were not

accepted in ground combat roles. Why not? On the campuses

of Harvard, Princeton, Columbia and Yale, NROTC had not

been present for decades. Why not?

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In every case – as is always the case with such questions – there

was no good answer.

So I strongly supported the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and

I led the implementation of open service in the Navy and Marine

Corps. I also, in 2010, opened service on submarines and in

riverine squadrons to women, I called for an increase in female

mids at the Naval Academy, and I advocated for opening all

combat specialties to women across the Navy and the Marine

Corps, which happened this past January.

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Working with the presidents of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and

Columbia we brought Naval ROTC back to their campuses. At

the same time, we established Naval ROTC units at Rutgers and

Arizona State, our country’s two the most diverse campuses in

our country.

We are doing this not to have diversity for diversity’s sake. But

because a diverse force is a stronger force. It’s a dangerous

thing for a military force to become too predictable. A

predictable force is a defeatable force. Every time we’ve

opened the services, every time – from the time the de-

segregated the military in the late 40’s to opening up ground

combat this year – every time, we’ve become stronger.

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It is also dangerous when there is too wide a gap between the

protected and those doing the protecting. Our pursuit of

diversity in thinking, diversity in experience, and diversity in

background gives us strength and guarantees our Navy and

Marine Corps are both reflective and representative of the nation

we defend.

But, as we have opened up opportunities for everyone to serve,

in no case are we lowering standards. Lowering standards is

unacceptable – unacceptable under the law, unacceptable to me,

and unacceptable to every military leader because it would

endanger not only the safety of Sailors and Marines, but the

security of our nation. But while there is no good argument to

lower standards, there is also no good argument to bar anyone

who has met those standards from serving alongside his or her

fellow Sailors and Marines – in every clime and place.

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If a person qualifies in every way for service, how can we

possibly say that they cannot share in the honor of defending

this country because of the shape of their skin, the color their

skin of their skin or because of who they love? We can’t. We

shouldn’t. And now, we don’t.

The experience that brought this home for me: I’ve been to

Afghanistan twelve times. On one of those trips I went through

Manaus, Kurdistan where we had a big base. Everybody

coming into or out of Afghanistan usually transited through

there. And I spoke to about 800 Sailors and Marines – about

half coming in and half going home. After the all hands call, a

First Class Petty Officer came up to me and said, “I just want to

thank you and everyone who was involved in repealing Don’t

Ask Don’t Tell.” He said, “I’ve been in the Navy for twelve

years.”

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He had just finished his third combat tour in Afghanistan and

Iraq. Three combat tours and yet his biggest fear was that he

was going to be found out as gay and made to leave the service.

How wrong is that? How wrong?

Recruiting a diverse force must be followed by retaining,

developing and advancing that force. So we implemented the

most sweeping reforms to personnel policies since Admiral

Elmo Zumwalt, my CNO and the namesake of America’s

newest Commissioned Destroyer, transformed our Navy in the

late 60’s and early 70’s.

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Seven years ago we were losing too many people, especially

women, because we weren’t doing all we could to uphold a

healthy working environment, Sailors and Marines often had to

choose between service and family, rigid career paths stifled

professional development, time in service was the primary

determinant of advancement, and our op-tempo was very high

and very unpredictable.

So we’ve taken deliberate steps under my 21st Century Sailor

and Marine Initiative to foster a professional, supportive and

inclusive workplace. We are absolutely committed, from the

deckplates to senior leadership, to combating the crime of sexual

assault, which is why I created the only Secretariat-level Sexual

Assault Prevention and Response Officer, who reports directly

to me.

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We’ve increased protections for Sailors and Marines suffering

from Traumatic Brain Injury and PTSD and other mental health

conditions. Too many times they were administratively

discharged for some bad act and the bad act took precedence

over whether they had PTSD or TBI. As a result, they got bad

paperwork. We reversed that. We are going to test these Sailors

and Marines, and if we find they had a condition that contributed

to the bad act, they may still get discharged, but they will have

access to VA care and other benefits they earned. We are also

addressing the tragedy of suicide – both in the service and with

our veterans.

Taking a bigger view on health, we’ve revamped physical

assessments, making them more realistically aligned with the

jobs we do, and we have promoted healthier lifestyles through

better nutrition and a culture of fitness.

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Part of taking care of Sailors and Marines is making it easier for

them to take care of themselves and their families, so we’ve

made career paths more flexible. One example, which has been

dramatically expanded, is the Career Intermission Program – a

program that allows Sailors and Marines to take up to three

years off to raise a child or care for an ailing family member or

for many other reasons. When they return, they owe us 2 years

for every year they were gone, but their careers aren’t penalized,

but rather, they compete with others who are similarly qualified

and experienced.

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For others, we’ve extended child care availability by two-hours

on both ends of the work day at all Navy and Marine Corps

facilities, and we now provide 24-hour care at three fleet

concentration areas. I also tripled paid maternity leave from 6 to

18 weeks, although DoD later reduced all services to 12 weeks,

and I expanded co-location policies to provide more stability to

dual-military couples.

Increased stability and career path predictability enables Sailors

and Marines to pursue the types of professional development

opportunities we need to drive innovation.

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Athenian General, Thucydides, is attributed for having said, “A

nation that draws too broad a distinction between it's scholars

and it's warriors will have it's thinking done by cowards, and it's

fighting done by fools.” To guarantee we don’t suffer that fate,

we added 30 graduate school slots through our Fleet Scholars

Education Program and we are sending high-performing Sailors

on SECNAV Industry Tours to great American companies like

FedEx and Amazon. There, they learn private sector best

practices that can be applied when they return, and as

representatives of our Navy and Marine Corps, they help bridge

the growing civil-military divide.

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To tap into that innovative culture and to revitalize the creativity

inherent in our Navy and Marine Corps, we established Task

Force Innovation, an initiative focused on drawing good ideas

from deckplate Sailors and field Marines through our online

crowdsourcing platform and then funding and rapidly moving

those ideas throughout the fleet. And we are better able to

recognize those who contribute because we have removed “zone

stamps” from officer promotion boards and our Commanding

Officers are now empowered to meritoriously promote up to 5%

of their Sailors and Marines. And if they don’t use their whole

5%, another CO can.

All of this is aimed at one thing – attracting, developing,

retaining, and advancing the most talented Sailors and Marines

America has to offer and getting them out to lead at sea and

overseas where we need them most.

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So my time is coming to an end. I am taking the opportunity to

visit our shipbuilding facilities and Fleet concentration areas –

I’ve already been to Groton, Norfolk, San Diego, Washington

state, and Wisconsin. I was just up the road at Naval Station

Great Lakes visiting with the future – the strength - of our Navy

– its people. I’ll soon travel to Mayport, Florida and continue on

overseas. This is to see the people who have done the work,

made the changes, built the ships – to give them a BZ, a “well

done.”

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I do this and I will depart in a few months, knowing that this

Administration has taken the necessary steps to assure that our

Navy has never been stronger. We are getting the right number

of the right kind of platforms to meet our mission; our

disciplined and deliberate use of energy has made us better

warfighters; we represent the greatest people America has to

offer, the absolute best in the world; and we continue to provide

presence - around the globe, around the clock.

A foreign head of Navy once told me that the difference

between Soldiers and Sailors is that Soldiers, by necessity, focus

on boundaries and obstacles. They are constantly looking down

at the ground. Sailors, on the other hand, look out. They look to

the open sea and see no boundaries. Sailors look to the horizon

and see only possibilities.

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So looking to the horizon, looking ahead, I am confident that the

policies we’ve enacted, the decisions we’ve made and the

priorities we’ve set guarantee that our Navy and our Marine

Corps will remain the greatest expeditionary fighting force the

world has ever known – for as far into the future as the eye can

see.

That is the strength of our link in the cable, and it will bear any

strain that tests it.

From the Navy, Semper Fortis, Always Courageous. And from

the Marine Corps, Semper Fidelis, Always Faithful. Thank you.