After knocking out popcorn from Danbury’s Lesser Evil and Orange’s PEZ candy, Electric Boat’s Virginia-class submarine vanquished the Black Hawk helicopter from Stratford’s Sikorsky to win the first-ever “Coolest Thing Made in Connecticut” title on Wednesday.
Announced at the annual Connecticut Manufacturing Summit in Hartford, Electric Boat’s win was a squeaker, with only a 150-vote difference amid more than 115,000 votes cast in the contest, staged by business group CBIA.
Other competing products: The Hi-Top Apple Pie from Middlefield’s Lyman Orchards, Constant Comment tea from Fairfield’s Bigelow Tea and the GTF Engine from East Hartford’s Pratt & Whitney.
“We launched the coolest thing made in Connecticut challenge in August to showcase the incredible and very diverse products that are made in our great state,” said Chris DiPentima, CBIA president and CEO.
Kevin Graney, president of General Dynamics Electric Boat, took the stage with executives and union leadership on Wednesday to credit the company’s employees for the win.
“One of the cool things about ship building is the generations of people who do the work,” Graney said. “Over the last two decades, the men and women of Electric Boat have evolved the Virginia-class submarine to remain the apex predator of our world’s oceans.”
Used by the U.S. military for anti-submarine and surface ship warfare and special operations support, the Virginia class is one of two types of military subs that have powered explosive growth at Groton-based Electric Boat in recent years.
In July, the company announced it would hire another 2,500 people in metal work, electronics, plumbing and manufacturing support trades. In August, the U.S. Department of Defense awarded Electric Boat another $1.3 billion for components to help develop the next generation of the subs.
Each Virginia-class attack sub costs an average of $4.5 billion, with the Navy having purchased 40 through the current fiscal year that ends this month.
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