If there is a silver lining to Pfizer's shrinking footprint in southeastern Connecticut, it's the way Electric Boat has been filling it right up.

Nowhere, of course, is the transition more apparent than at EB's new buildings in New London, the former Pfizer research campus.

EB says it is poised to quickly race past the Pfizer employment peak population of about 1,900 in New London. There will soon be as many as 3,200 people working there. They might even reach capacity for the complex, about 3,600 people, in the not-too-distant future.

A graph of EB's hiring, driven now by design work for a replacement class for the aging Ohio-class missile subs, shows a chart of design and engineering staff, now at 4,100, climbing delightfully close to the 5,000 mark.

I was also curious to hear, on a recent tour of EB's New London site, that, had it not been for Pfizer's timely abandonment and sale of its new complex in New London, that the shipyard probably would have expanded somewhere else, very possibly in Rhode Island.

Not only have many of the people who now work at EB New London left cramped quarters in old buildings in Groton, but one of the oldest, where they designed the Nautilus, may soon be torn down.

So hello EB and goodbye to Pfizer.

(I would add to Pfizer: Don't let the door hit you on the way out. But, really, let's hope Pfizer's inevitable transition out of Groton is long and slow.)

The biggest surprise I experienced, in touring Electric Boat New London is that it still looks every bit as glamorous as it did when it was the world research headquarters of a Fortune 500 drugmaker.

I guess maybe I expected EB to move over a lot of old battleship gray desks of the Nautilus era.

Instead, they showed us "neighborhoods" of new desk pods that take advantage of the spectacular views out the river and toward the downtown, a configuration that is even more open and graceful than the ones used by Pfizer.

There are elaborate multimedia conference rooms and some work seating areas clustered, like the high-top tables and tall stools you might find in a bar, around oversized computer monitors.

These are limited to seating for seven people, because managers believe that's the highest number of people who can creatively collaborate. With groups larger than that, they add, it's just a meeting.

The other thing that struck me on the tour is the number of young people who work there. This is not your father's shipyard.

Indeed, Peter J. Halvordson, vice president of engineering, said he has been constantly impressed by the quality of applicants Electric Boat has attracted in its new hiring.

He said they recruit largely from New England colleges, and their experience, contrary to popular notions, is that American schools are producing graduates with excellent math and science skills.

EB is partnering these young people with older EB designers and engineers through formal and informal mentoring programs. The veterans teach the new employees not only design techniques but where to find a good dentist in southeastern Connecticut.

"It is really exciting," Halvordson said about the new hiring going on. "These are people who will be able to look back 30 years from now and say, 'We've done so many great things.' "

Of course the hiring and job projections, EB executives are quick to add, depend on a stable federal budget environment.

The automatic cuts built into the federal budget system, if they are not changed by the next election, will mean draconian cuts here, EB says. Just watch that employment graph go the other way.

So long to the notion of 5,000 engineering and design workers.

Electric Boat has been wise to share some of the optimistic hiring projections lately - the ones that assume the automatic budget cuts go away - given the heated election season at hand.

The bright employment future in New London for EB is no small reason for people around here to pay close attention to what candidates say they will do about the federal budget standoff.

This is the opinion of David Collins