US Navy Port Engineer Program

We recruit, hire, train and support a large contingent of highly experienced Maritime and Navy engineers providing waterfront maintenance engineering support services to U.S. Navy surface ships as well as the Regional Maintenance Commands (RMCs) and Combined Fleet Forces Command (CFFC).

CAMBER Port Engineers assist and support the U.S. Navy in maintaining over 100 surface ships in the highest material condition possible, with safety and system reliability being our primary concern. We are the leader of maintenance teams which validate, screen, prioritize and assign all off-ship maintenance for our assigned ships. CAMBER Port Engineers use their experience and knowledge representing their assigned ships, with many serving over 10 continuous years on the same ship or class.

The U.S. Navy Port Engineer Program has been a singular success in enabling the U.S. Navy surface force to achieve optimum material readiness within constrained funding levels. The program has been in existence since 1980 when Congress, in response to GAO findings, recommended the Navy adopt commercial best practices for maintaining U.S. Navy surface ships. It has expanded over the years and now encompasses all ships of the U.S. Navy surface force. The success of the program can be directly attributed to years of maintaining uniformly high standards of personnel quality and integrity through a mix of contract and government port engineers possessing USCG engineer licenses, commercial or Navy operating and maintenance expertise and formal engineering degrees. CAMBER Port Engineers offer the Navy the flexibility to recruit top industry talent and support dynamic programmatic and operational requirements.

U.S. Navy Port Engineers are a mix of civil servant and contractors located within their respective RMCs and communicate directly with RMC management and COMNAVSURFORCE staff. Port Engineers are assigned one or two ships, depending on the ship class, and are the ship’s maintenance advocate. Port Engineers duties include:

• Act as the RMC and COMNAVSURFORCE single point of contact in coordinating efforts of all maintenance and planning activities in support of depot and intermediate level repairs, maintenance, and modernization for assigned ships.
• Validate and diagnose maintenance requirements based on their knowledge and experience and recommend maintenance actions to assigned Ship COs
• Screen level of maintenance (depot vs. IMA) based on their knowledge and experience.
• Develop maintenance business plan for review and decision by the ship CO and the RMC Commanding Officer.
• Provide technical leadership and coordination for their Maintenance Team.
• Provide management and quality oversight of the execution of maintenance in repair activities.