So much so that they invented a whole new award for outgoing U.S. senator.
Courant business writer Eric Gershon reports that the Submarine Industrial Base Council has no name presented Dodd with the “Submarine Base Advocate Award, which recognizes the Senator’s efforts over 36 years in Congress to “on behalf of Connecticut’s submarine industry.”
“Submarines are a vital part of America’s national defense,” Jim Jelinek, co-chairman of the council, said in a press release announcing the award. “Sen. Dodd has long recognized the importance of our submarines and the associated industrial base and we wanted to make sure he understood the positive impact he has had on our suppliers and the submarine force.”
The award came in the form of a framed photograph of the USS Connecticut, with inscribed nameplate. The 19-year-old group presented it at the group’s Congressional breakfast in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill Thursday morning.
“The more than 850 members of the SIBC thank Senator Dodd for his tireless efforts over the years fighting for the submarine supplier industrial base,” said SIBC co-chair Dan DePompei, marketing and sales director of DRS Power Technology of Fitchburg, Mass.
Electric Boat, one of the nation’s two nuclear sub builders and a major Connecticut employer, is based in Groton.