New London — With a view of where she spent the last four years overseeing the building of submarines, Capt. Darlene Grasdock was relieved of her duties as supervisor of shipbuilding, conversion and repair in Groton by Capt. Jeffrey Heydon in a change of command ceremony Friday on the grounds of Fort Trumbull State Park.

The supervisor serves as the liaison between the Navy and submarine builder Electric Boat.

Grasdock is retiring after 26 years of service to the Navy.

Ninety submarines are deployed across the world today, and that does not include the 11 submarines under construction at EB's facilities in Groton and Quonset Point, Grasdock said in her remarks.

The submarine that served as the cornerstone of Grasdock's four-year tour as supervisor was the Virginia-class nuclear attack submarine, including the delivery of the USS North Dakota, the first submarine to have a redesigned bow with a new sonar array and two larger payload tubes instead of 12 individual, vertical-launch missile tubes.

While the North Dakota was delivered on time and under budget to the Navy, it was not all smooth sailing.

Third-party vendor issues and additional design and certification work required on the submarine's redesigned bow delayed the submarine's commissioning ceremony. 

Grasdock's team worked with EB to inspect the submarine and ensure it was prepared to go to sea. North Dakota was the lead ship in Block III of the class.

"The class was actually in a bit of trouble. Congress was mad at us for cost overruns. A couple of the ships were late and, like all lead ships, it was hard," said Grasdock's boss, Vice Adm. William Hilarides, 43rd commander of Naval Sea Systems Command. "Darlene ignored all that noise and did her job to the very best of her ability."

Hilarides said he'd been told that Friday was the first time that a Navy change of command ceremony, or any big Navy ceremony, had been held at Fort Trumbull, a particularly fitting locale.

"In the late 1790s when this fort was first constructed, and then again in the mid-1800s, this was the premiere strategic deterrence and defense of the United States," Hilardes said.

"The money that they spent on Fort Trumbull over those 50 years really represented the tip of the spear for United States defense. What you see behind us is the current tip of our defense," Hilardes said of Electric Boat's Groton facility across the river.

Hilarides highlighted Grasdock's role in the success of the Virginia-class program and her service as a role model for the Navy.

"We've been committed for the last 25 or 30 years to making the Navy a fully equal-opportunity organization and we've struggled," he said. "We've struggled to get women, frankly, into our command ranks. They struggled because of family and the tugs of a family. They struggled because of the barriers that we put in place over the years to go make that harder."

Grasdock and her husband, Wayne, both Navy captains, represent "what the future needs to look like," Hilarides said, explaining that they both commanded their respective communities and have balanced being together and raising their daughter Alexis, 9.

"That is really a stunning achievement in the context of what's going on in our Navy over the last 25 years," he continued, noting that Grasdock is an example of how both men and women in the Navy can find the "right balance between service and family."

During her remarks, Grasdock emphasized the high performance carried out by her team, and the support of her family.

Grasdock and Heydon share more than having the same job; both hail from Montana. Heydon, who now lives in Ledyard, most recently served as operations officer for Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility.

Heydon, during his remarks, spoke of the Turtle, the first submarine, he said, built by David Bushnell in 1775 in Old Saybrook. The Turtle employed a screw-type propeller and a rudimentary torpedo, according to Heydon.  

"Like early submarine construction pioneers, we're continually advancing the design and capability of the submarine as a weapons platform," he said. "It is through the incredible efforts of great Americans like you at SUPSHIP Groton that we can feel these state-of-the-art submarines that continue to dominate the undersea domain."

Heydon said he was confident that he and his new team could "successfully accomplish our challenging mission," namely, the design and initial construction of the Ohio-class replacement program, the increased production rate of the Virginia-class submarine, the design of the new variant of the current Virginia class, and a major maintenance availability on the USS Montpelier.

j.bergman@theday.com

Twitter: @JuliaSBergman