October 28, 2022
Colloquium Topic: Heavy Metal: The Hard Days and Nights of the Shipyard Workers who Build America's Supercarriers
Building the world's most lethal and sophisticated nuclear-powered aircraft carriers is hard enough -- and the shipbuilders in Newport News, Virginia, have spent decades honing their craft and art. But constructing the biggest warships on the during COVID19 and the cultural chaos that has gripped the United States over the past few years seemed a near-impossible task. But the steelworkers at Newport News Shipbuilding proved to be more than up to the task by finishing the hull of the carrier John F. Kennedy, the newest flattop, ahead of schedule. Only a group as diverse, committed and colorful could accomplish such a feat.
Colloquium Speaker: Michael Fabey
Born into the tough neighborhoods of Northeast Philadelphia, and defying the odds to attend college in Trenton, New Jersey and finish in Australia (using a bicycle for transportation), Michael Fabey learned the essence of success as an investigative journalist early: self-preservation, persistence, and a tough insistence to go where a story leads.
He has done what it takes to get the news that matters to U.S. national and economic security for over 30 years. That has included chasing pirates into the Amazon of Brazil, boarding as crew on cargo ships and gaining access to U.S. warships, and somehow convincing Chinese authorities to allow him to interview them aboard their most sensitive military naval vessels.
In the mid-1990s, he worked as a merchant seaman on a cargo ship from the southeast of Florida to the sister coast of Sao Paulo Brazil for the Journal of Commerce, via Venezuela. For the rest of that decade and until 2005, he collected datelines like postage stamps throughout Latin America, Europe, and the Persian Gulf, living and working for a bit in Brazil, with passable Portuguese in tow.
Like many people, he went through changes with his perspective and career after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. From that point forward, he focused his reporting on stories about U.S. national defense. Since that time, he's flown in F-15s, V-22s, and a variety of other aircraft; spent weeks on aircraft and nuclear missile submarines; and lived with troops as they traveled in Bradleys, Humvees, and whatever else they got around on through terrain from the forests outside Savannah, Georgia, to the Arctic tundra in Norway.
After gaining access to Chinese vessels, aircraft and bases, he provided briefings to Pentagon personnel and Crashback filled out the reading lists for many stationed in the Western Pacific. In much the same way, Heavy Metal captures the importance, the aspirations and the danger of shipbuilders on the American waterfront. He is now trekking with US forces in the Arctic, to track the US needs, efforts and difficulties in protecting the American High North.