NDIA and Navy TPP Team Up to Grow Next-Gen Shipyard Talent

(ARLINGTON, VA) – The National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) is expanding its partnership with the U.S. Navy's Talent Pipeline Program (TPP) to enhance talent acquisition, training, and retention across the U.S. Navy defense industrial base (DIB). According to NDIA’s Vital Signs 2025 report, critical components of the U.S. DIB, particularly skilled trade positions, have significantly declined over recent decades. The TPP is actively reversing this trend by training, coaching, encouraging, and recognizing small and medium-sized companies to improve their Talent Acquisition and Retention systems of recruiting, training, and retaining productive and engaged workers crucial to maintaining naval supremacy.

Following a successful pilot collaboration with NDIA’s Delaware Valley Chapter, NDIA and TPP aim to broaden their engagement with Chapters across the country. The Chapters will play a critical role in expanding the reach and impact of the program.

"This partnership is vital to rebuilding our defense industrial base," said NDIA President and CEO David Norquist. "By connecting our member companies with the Navy’s Talent Pipeline Program, we’re helping secure the skilled workforce needed for shipbuilding and strengthening both our industry and national security."

Inspired by the shared mission, Joe Barto, program leader of the U.S. Navy Talent Pipeline Program, said he’s honored to have NDIA on the TPP team, adding: “Partnerships with national facilitators like NDIA are vital to the Talent Pipeline Program’s national rollout. Their support validates the Navy’s investment in small and medium-sized manufacturers—the backbone of American industry and the majority of NDIA’s membership. By joining the movement alongside more than 450 employers, NDIA is helping ensure companies have the talent they need to build high-performing teams.”

The Talent Pipeline Program directly addresses the U.S. Navy’s growing manufacturing production requirements by ensuring a steady pipeline of skilled talent to deliver and sustain Columbia and Virginia-class submarines, aircraft carriers, surface combatants, and vessels currently in service. This expanded initiative will reinforce U.S. naval capabilities and fortify national security in an increasingly complex global environment.

Learn more about the Talent Pipeline Program at https://dibtalentpipeline.com/ and https://youtu.be/qH6Cuffyo2o

Read NDIA’s “Vital Signs 2025” here: NDIA.org/policy/publications/vital-signs