September 1987 to June 1995

Moving to Vallejo was not an option for my new bride.  Marlene would have to either commute to her job in Daly City or find a lesser paying job near Vallejo.  We resolved this problem by selling her condo and my house.  We bought the house across the street from mom and dad.  I applied for a position in the outfit located at the old shipyard in San Francisco's Hunter's Point. 

The outfit, Supervisor of Shipbuilding - San Francisco (aka SUPSHIP-SF), was located in the "still standing" design building when there was a shipyard at Hunter's Point 25 years earlier.  Many of my father's younger acquaintances were still attached to the shipyard after it closed down and continued to work from the design building.  When they learned the son of Jack Ng was to work among them, expectations were high.

Like typecasting actors to their familiar acting roles, I was "type-casted" to work in the Structural Engineering branch of the design team...Code 250.  I would work alongside with my father's former coworkers, both engineers and surveyors.  I would often wonder if I was treated the way I was because of my father.

The role SUPSHIP played in the the scheme of things was to act as a mediator between the Navy and its contractors.  We would receive drawings from the naval vessel's designated home shipyard for repairs or modifications.  Our job was to check it against the vessel berthed locally to insure all the measurements were correct and the repairs/modifications would fit the space. Occasionally the design work was done in-house by one of us. The surveyors would write up the work that was required.  All the data would be sent to the contracts department where the contracts were organized and set out for bid.  Once approved the design department was responsible for fielding questions from the contractors who won the bid.

More often than not a "shipcheck" was required where we would have to take the measurements and check out the spaces where the vessel was located.  Some sites included Alameda, Treasure Island, Mare Island and the local piers in San Francisco.  Unlike MINSY where we worked solely with other design teams and the Navy, we now had to include the independent civilian contractors.

There were a lot more trips out to local shipyards up and down the bay area.  I would be assigned jobs from barges to the big carriers.   There was even one job that was to gut out a cargo transport and turn it into a berthing ship.  My work was no longer confined to submarines. 

Some of the TDY trips would take me to places like San Diego, Port Hueneme and Honolulu.  Unfortunately there was little time for sightseeing.  As for the accommodations, we usually had to be lodged on base.  As a GS-11 and GS-12, we were granted officer's quarters.  Dining on base was optional.  I recall a steak house in San Diego where the cost for a 28 oz prime rib dinner still fell within our allotted budget.  The officer's mess in Port Hueneme was the most elegant military mess.  When in Honolulu, we went to the Ala Moana Center's food court, the largest food court I've ever seen. 

Unfortunately the good times ended with SUPSHIP as the base closures of 1995 included my workplace.  It was a big deal for the base commander as service plaques were given for time served.  In my case it was all 18 years which included LAMC, MINSY and SUPSHIP.