Paxton Interviewed on Bright Future of U.S. Shipyard Industry in The Maritime Executive

Click here to read the article in The Maritime Executive

Adams & Reese Partner and Shipbuilders Council of America (SCA) President Matt Paxton is featured in a Q&A with The Maritime Executive to discuss the optimistic future of the U.S. shipyard industry given the current presidential administration and promising legislation. The interview is published in the May/June 2025 magazine issue.

The Maritime Executive magazine, website, newsletter, and social media platforms form the largest audience in the maritime industry with articles and editorials impacting the global maritime industry read by business executives and government leaders around the world.

SCA, which represents more than 140 member companies that build, repair, maintain, modernize, and supply ships for the U.S. military and other commercial vessels, has advocated for a strong U.S. maritime industry and American shipyard industrial base since its founding in 1920. Paxton has held the SCA leadership role since 2007.

Below is the interview published in The Maritime Executive with questions from the publication’s senior editor Jack O’Connell.

Executive Achievement: Matt Paxton, President, SCA

By Jack O’Connell

Born and raised in a military family, Paxton inherited a strong work ethic and even stronger sense of duty. He worked summers in a salmon packing factory in Alaska, graduated from the University of Washington, earned his law degree at Willamette University College of Law and immediately set off for Washington, DC to work in public policy. He became a Legislative Assistant to the late Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska – his mentor, who taught him the ropes – then Senior Counsel to the Senate Commerce Committee and other Capitol Hill postings and eventually into the private sector as a lawyer and registered lobbyist with a deep understanding of the inner workings of government.

Today’s he’s President and chief spokesperson for the Shipbuilders Council of America (SCA), an office he’s held since 2007. During that time, he’s built up the membership so that now it represents almost every major shipyard in America. He’s also Partner-in-Charge of the Washington office of Adams & Reese, where he specializes in maritime law and policy and a number of related areas.  

Paxton sees a bright future for U.S. shipyards in the period ahead, encouraged by the Trump Administration’s commitment to “Making Maritime Great Again.”

Read on to learn more and why he believes this is a special “moment in time” when America has the opportunity to make a long-term “generational investment” in its shipbuilding and repair capabilities.

Welcome aboard, Matt! Tell us about your dual roles – head of the Washington office of a major law firm and President of the SCA. That’s a little unusual, isn’t it?

No, not really. It’s a structure that’s kind of common in Washington for a lot of trade associations. We have a relatively small team that manages a very large – membership-wise – association. But because we’re housed in a 300+ person law firm with 18 different offices, which just happen to be all along the Gulf Coast and Eastern Seaboard where a lot of our shipyards are, you get the benefit of having a major law firm backing you up and allowing you to punch above your weight.

We have very reasonable membership dues, which we’re really proud of, and we work with all the other maritime trade groups. What we don’t have is a lot of overhead and all the things that come with a larger kind of trade association, and that’s been the model since before my time.

I see. Can you give us an overview of the SCA – when it started and why, some highlights along the way?

Sure. SCA has existed in some form or fashion since 1920, the same year the Jones Act was enacted, and probably because we were going to have a maritime cabotage law in the U.S. Previous to that, we really didn’t. But now it was the law that if you’re going to operate in the U.S. your vessels have to be U.S.-built, U.S.-owned and U.S.-crewed.

So, the association has a focus back then that was about regrowing the industry at a time when we had shifted away from that, and there’ve been lots of ups and downs since. Slow-going in the 1930s, all-out production and growth during World War II, gradual retrenchment beginning in the mid-1950s and extending into the late 1960s, then revival with the 1970 Merchant Marine Act and into the 1980s and another long decline through the 1990s and 2000s.

By the time I became President of SCA in 2007, the focus was on mid-tier shipyards doing brown water work and some government work. So, we decided to change the momentum and grow our membership again. And we did. Then in 2012 another trade association that was representing part of the industry went away and that left a number of the Big Six shipyards – Northrop Grumman’s Avondale, Ingalls and Newport News Shipbuilding and General Dynamics’ Bath Iron Works, Electric Boat and NASSCO – unpresented.

So, we said, “Listen, we’re here. We’d like to work with you.” And the person who was running General Dynamic’s NASSO operation, Fred Harris – a legend in the industry – had already joined SCA and really liked what we were doing. So, over time we brought those shipyards into the fold and a lot of their suppliers as well.

And that kind of the evolution of SCA.

Today, we represent everybody again. We’re back where we started. We have that national focus where we’re advocating for the industry before Congress and before the Administration. We’re policy-driven, directed by our Board and advocating for policies that enhance and promote the shipyard industrial base.  

We’re also a 501(c)(6), so we lobby and have a PAC and do all the things a nonprofit advocacy group is supposed to do.

Awesome, and it seems to be working because right now we have an Administration that wants to “Make Maritime Great Again” and we have a reintroduced Ships for America Act that includes, among other goals, building a 250-vessel Strategic Commercial Fleet. Can we really build 250 ships?

Absolutely. I’ve always said, “If we have a contract, we can do it.”

People say, “Oh, we don’t have the capacity or the capability.” Our shipyards have the capacity. Our shipyards are, quite frankly, underutilized right now.

We’re really good when we have a clear demand signal and volume and can build at scale. Just look at what we’re doing with the Virginia Class submarine program and other military contracts. We can do that on the commercial side, too.

So, can we build 250 vessels tomorrow? Clearly, we would ramp up to that. The way the SHIPS Act looks at it is, in the near term, we start with five, 10, 20 vessels a year. I think the shipyards can meet that demand and scale up rapidly and become very efficient at it.

What about LNG ships. Can we build them?

We could do it right now. We were the first to do it. We did the 1970s when we had one of our biggest peacetime shipbuilding initiatives ever, the 1970 Merchant Marine Act.

But then the market went away, and our shipyards don’t build LNG carriers on spec. Our yards don’t build anything for a market that doesn’t exist. Unlike other shipbuilding nations like China and Korea, we don’t receive government subsidies to finance ships that no customers have ordered. However, if there is a market demand signal, like that in the SHIPS Act and other actions taken by the U.S. Trade Representative, we can and will build LMG carriers.

It all comes down to the contract. If we have the contract and the demand signal, shipyards will step up and meet the challenge.

Let’s talk about financing. Who’s going to pay for all these new ships? Will there be government subsidies?

There will be some level of construction subsidy, but I think what they’re really talking about is attracting private equity investment. Let’s drive some of that venture capital into shipyards. And you’re already seeing it. You’re seeing shipyards being purchased to do autonomous vessel construction.

The real goal of the Administration’s maritime push and the SHIPS for America Act is having a national maritime strategy that focuses all this energy and brings capital to our manufacturing industrial base. There’s going to be tax incentives. There are going to be opportunity zones centered on an “all of America” type of approach.

What I mean by this is our shipyards are historically on our coastlines or inland waterways. A lot of the new activity will be modular construction where you’re also building components in the heartland. We’re already seeing it with the submarine industrial base. We have yards that have never built nuclear submarines, but they’re building modules for that ramp-up of shipbuilding in our submarine programs.

On the commercial shipbuilding front, you’re going to see that type of “all of America” manufacturing where modules are built in all kinds of U.S. facilities but assembled in our shipyards.

Do we really need a 250-vessel commercial fleet?

Yes, we need it because our Navy is taking care of the world’s global commerce, making sure the Red Sea, the Black Sea, the South China Sea are safe. If we have our own commercial fleet out there under the U.S. flag, it’s a sign we’ve reentered international commerce and have a logistical arm to support our nation from a trade standpoint and to sustain our Navy, Coast Guard and Merchant Marine in times of crisis.

So, it’s logical that we’re doing this. We need that logistical auxiliary arm. China has done the same thing with all the ships it’s built. They have a military component as well as a commercial one and will conscript these vessels as needed if a contingency comes up. We shouldn’t be completely dependent on communist China’s subsidized ships for all our imports.

Love it! Any final comments for our readers?

Yes, I think what we have right now is a special “moment in time.” We have an Administration committed to revitalizing the industry, and we have bipartisan legislation in the SHIPs for America Act to get it done. So, we’re together on this.

The biggest challenge is not to miss this opportunity to make a long-term, generational investment in the growth and sustainment of a proud shipyard industry in the U.S. Let’s meet this moment in time to really achieve lasting industrial policy as it relates to our entire maritime industry and especially our industrial shipbuilding base.

- Jack O’Connell is the Senior Editor of The Maritime Executive.