Norfolk Naval Shipyard gets first female CO
The officer who led Norfolk Naval Shipyard’s planning and execution of nuclear vessel overhauls is back after two years away, as the first female commanding officer of the Navy’s oldest shipyard.
Capt. Dianna Wolfson took command of the yard, with its nearly 11,000 employees, on Friday. Her priorities include implementing a new strategic framework to improve performance of the shipyard’s leadership, its organizational culture, employee development and the way it does its job.
Last year, the Naval Sea Systems Command relieved then-commanding officer Capt. Kai Torkelson because of a loss of confidence in his ability to fix underlying performance issues.
Among Wolfson’s first goals is meeting with production work groups to make sure they know lines of communication are open.
“I believe in the mantra that ‘if you take care of your people, they’ll take care of you,’” she said. “I think the people piece of the business is so important because it’s the people who do the work. It’s the people who make change. It’s the people who drive results.”
Rear Adm. Howard Markle, who has been commanding the yard since Torkelson’s relief, said Wolfson’s “deep sense of care and commitment to our Navy and the
NNSY workforce will be at the forefront of meeting the shipyard’s priorities of developing our people and delivering on our mission.”
Wolfson comes back to Norfolk Naval Shipyard after a stint as commander of Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility. There, she was the first female commander of any of the Navy’s shipyards.
She returns to Hampton Roads as Naval Sea Systems Command’s two-decade, $21 billion investment program in the nation’s four Naval shipyards swings into high gear — including projects now underway for a new floodwall and wastewater plant here.
In addition to her earlier assignment as operations officer at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, she had previously served there as project superintendent for the USS Newport News engineered overhaul.
She has also served as project officer at Supervisor of Shipbuilding Newport News, in charge of the delivery of USS Abraham Lincoln in 2017 after its refueling and overhaul at Newport News Shipbuilding, while simultaneously planning both the multi-year, multi-billion-dollar overhauls of USS George Washington and USS John C. Stennis, which involved contracts totaling more than $9.5 billion.
A graduate of the United States Merchant Marine Academy, Wolfson was among the Navy’s first female surface nuclear officers in the 1990s. She has a masters degree in engineering from MIT and has served on nuclear carriers, as well as holding a leadership role in work on submarines at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine. As force maintenance officer at Naval Air Force Atlantic, she developed a $362 million budget for repair and maintenance of five aircraft carriers.