Sesquicentennial: Colonna's Shipyard Celebrates 150 Years

 

"My role is to continue the legacy started by my great-great-grandfather, Charles J. Colonna, in 1875," says Randall Crutchfield, Chairman & CEO of Colonna's Shipyard. "That means doing the right thing, investing for the long term and ensuring that this company is around for many more generations to come."

It's a big responsibility, but Crutchfield embraces it. His sense of stewardship is strong. He feels an obligation not just to his forebears but to his employees and their families, many of whom have been with the company for generations.

He has big shoes to fill, having taken the helm in January 2024 following the retirement of long-time CEO Tom Godfrey and the passing of his grandfather, Willoughby Warren ("Bill") Colonna. He credits his grandfather with being the visionary, who made the investments that transformed the company into more than just a shipyard, and Godfrey with being the perfect complement in making it happen.

Crutchfield has his own #2 in Jordan Webb, who functions as President & General Manager and assumed his new position the same day Crutchfield did.

150 years is a long time in anyone's book, and Colonna's is in fact the oldest continuously owned and operated family shipyard in the U.S. And while it may not be a household name, it's the kind of blue collar, nose-to-the-grindstone family business that's been the backbone of America from the very beginning.

There were ups and downs along the way, of course. Two world wars, the Great Depression, a bankruptcy filing. There's even a book about it, The History of Colonna's Shipyard and Its People, written by Crutchfield's grandfather, that traces the family lineage back to 1609 in Virginia and before that to England and a small town in Italy.

Through it all – the good and the bad – the company persevered, remained true to its values, kept its promises and emerged stronger than ever.

MORE THAN A SHIPYARD

What started as a single marine railway powered by horses is now a multifaceted company with a number of related businesses, all centered on blue-collar craftsmanship. The heart of the operation remains the shipyard in Norfolk, a sprawling 120-acre complex with room to grow and housing three drydocks, a 1,000-metric-ton Travelift, a marine railway (not the original, but one dating back to 1891), more than 100,000 square feet of heavy industrial shop space with cranes and perhaps the largest layout area on the East Coast.

Its legacy business is ship repair, and – given its strategic location at the center of the Tidewater Virginia's military/industrial complex – there's no shortage of both commercial and government customers. On the commercial side, there's the Chesapeake Bay fishing fleet, harbor and offshore tugs, dredgers, barges and ferries. Customers include well-known names like McAllister and Moran Towing, Norfolk Dock and Great Lakes Dredge & Dock.

On the government side, there's the military – the U.S. Coast Guard, Navy, Army and Army Corps of Engineers. "A lot of people don't know this," notes Crutchfield, "but the U.S. Army has more vessels than the Navy does." Then there's what Crutchfield calls the "quasi-government" side, not Department of Defense but government agencies like NOAA and the Virginia Department of Transportation: "Basically, we're a jack-of-all-trades. Whoever comes knocking, we answer the door."

The business is traditionally divided roughly 50-50 between the government and commercial sectors. Right now, it's running more like 60 percent government and 40 percent commercial.

Supplementing the bread-and-butter ship repair business are three other operations – all located on the Norfolk campus. The first is Steel America, established by Tom Godfrey and Crutchfield's grandfather in 2000 to provide some diversity while capitalizing on the company's core welding and machining skills.

"Steel America started with a contract from the Ford Motor Company, which had a F-150 assembly plant about two miles down the road, to put together some additional assembly capacity," Crutchfield explains. "It's basically a commercial fabrication business. Today, it's largely supporting the prime shipbuilders like Newport News Shipbuilding and Electric Boat on some of the programs you read about in the headlines – the aircraft carrier program, the Columbia submarine program, the Virginia submarine program."

Crutchfield sees Steel America's long-term role as supporting the prime shipbuilders in building more ships for the U.S. Navy in tune with the Trump Administration's goals.

The second piece is Weld America, started just a few years ago and featuring an elite team of welders and state-of-the-art equipment including the latest in mechanized welding systems. Crutchfield calls it a "turnkey weld solution provider," which can mobilize anywhere in the world, work with customers and give them what they need.

The final piece on the Norfolk campus is the Down River division, a sort of traveling shipyard designed to mobilize outside the gate on a 24/7 basis, bringing the topside resources of a major shipyard directly to the customer. "They're on multiple contracts at Naval Operations Base, Norfolk," says Crutchfield, "as well as in other shipyards right now, just bringing our skilled trades people to where they're most needed."

The company's Norfolk Barge fleet is also based in Norfolk and leased to customers on a project basis.

Two other operations extend Colonna's reach beyond the Tidewater region. There's Colonna's Shipyard West, based in San Diego, not a full-fledged shipyard but rather a subcontractor, and Accurity Industrial Contractors in Owensboro, Kentucky, which Colonna's purchased two years ago. Accurity is a premier specialty contractor focused on welding, piping and industrial plant maintenance services – land-based but offering the same project management, skilled tradespeople approach as the marine repair business.

THE ROAD AHEAD

Crutchfield sees more acquisitions like Accurity in the future, but his main focus is growing the company organically and investing for the long term. He's got his leadership team in place, and the many apprenticeship and training programs the company sponsors guarantee a highly skilled and disciplined workforce for the foreseeable future.

But you don't last 150 years without a strong culture and work ethic, and that's at the heart of everything Colonna's does. It's all about the people and the values – Respect, Pride, Truth and Family – that the company promulgates and cherishes.

"I've been working here since my teenage years," says Crutchfield. "I know almost everyone in the yard. When I give a tour to guests, I recognize employees on a first-name basis. There are people who've been here 30, 40, 50 years. Their fathers worked here. Their children work here. We're like one big family, and we all share the same values. We keep our word. We respect one another. We believe in the dignity of work, of always telling the truth and of taking pride in a job well done. That's who we are and who we'll always be."

So there will be many small and not-so-small 150-year celebrations, all centered on the families of people (retired and active) who made the company what it is today. In the 150 days leading up to January 1, for example, the company gave out 150 challenge coins that commemorated the event to individual employees. "We were able to bring back some of the folks who had recently retired and had worked here for 30+ years and celebrate them in front of everybody," says Crutchfield.

There'll be a commemorative video and a commemorative plaque with employee signatures on it and several more events. Customers will also be recognized, many of whom have been with the company for decades.

"We're taking an entire year and just making sure that everything we do is centered around honoring the legacy of 150 years," Crutchfield adds. "For me to be able to do that from the CEO's position and really speak for the entire company, to express our appreciation for the last 150 years, is really, really humbling and one of the greatest honors of my life."

What's more, the best is yet to come.

Tony Munoz is the magazine's Founder, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief.