Navy Establishes New Deputy Chief Of Naval Operations to Support Failing Shore Infrastructure

An aerial view shows construction progress on Dry Dock 5 (P-209) at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, Aug. 7, 2026. Officer in Charge of Construction Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard leads construction of the new dry dock, a key component of the Navy’s Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program and the modernization of Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility. US Navy photo WASHINGTON NAVY YARD – Navy shore infrastructure will be in failing condition by 2037 if the sea service continues to use its current funding schedule, the new deputy chief of naval operations told USNI News on Thursday.

As the newly created deputy chief of naval operations of sustainment, Vice Adm. Scott Gray, who will report on Oct. 5, will be tasked with continuously pushing for funding for shore infrastructure, including barracks and piers.

“The idea is to continue the efforts to revitalize the shore, make wise investments and kind of bring the shore infrastructure back to where it needs to be to better support the needs of the fleet,” Gray said.

Vice Adm. Scott Gray salutes as he arrives for a change of command ceremony for Commander, Navy Installations Command (CNIC) at the Washington Navy Yard, Sept. 24, 2026. US Navy photo On Thursday, fighting back a cold and some tears, Gray relinquished his role as commander of Navy Installation Command. The newly promoted Vice Adm. Brad Collins assumed CNIC in a change of command ceremony at the Naval History Museum.

Gray will oversee Navy shore installations, logistics and maintenance, with Commander, Navy Installations Command, Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command and Naval Supply Systems Command falling under his purview.

The creation of the deputy chief of naval operations for sustainment is meant to enable faster decision making and support the fleet by increasing integration and accountability across Navy staff, Capt. Dave Hecht, a Navy spokesperson, told USNI News.

Shore infrastructure has taken a hit over the years, especially in funding, Gray said. The ongoing war in Iran has damaged oversea bases and created logistical challenges, while structural changes in Navy equipment, like a heavier P-8 Poseidon, has led to new challenges for the aging infrastructure.

“We’re struggling pretty mightily to keep our ships maintained, and that’s in a peacetime environment,” Gray said.

Barges move equipment and a crane into Dry Dock 4 at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility in Bremerton, Washington, Oct. 29, 2025, in preparation for an 11-month project to improve the structural integrity of the dry dock to ensure the safety of workers in the event of a seismic event. Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command Northwest awarded a $377.7 million task order to Kiewit-Alberici Joint Venture to execute the project work, which began Nov. 3, 2025. US Navy photo Part of the maintenance backlog is the underfunding of shore infrastructure in recent decades. Gray compared it to owning a house. Skipping a repair doesn’t immediately hurt the home, but doing it again and again over 20 years will leave the house in disrepair. What would have cost $100 at the time is now a $20,000 problem.

“The shore installation portfolio is very much in that situation. Because of the under investment, we’ve taken risk, and we’ve tried to balance that across the many parts of that portfolio. And as you do that over time, the material condition of it continues to degrade,” he said.

Piers, runways, dry docks all need to be revitalized, as do housing and food halls, Gray said.

“There’s this natural tendency to move toward the things that are shiny, bright objects, [like] the airplanes,” he said. “But there are real challenges and impacts to our sailors and quality of life by degraded piers, by degraded facilities.”

Sailors adapt to the deficiencies that have come from the lack of funding, Gray said. Sailors load up ships instead of being able to use a crane because the piers don’t support them, he said. What could take four hours takes 10.

“There’s just so many things like that in the shore enterprise, where we’ve just adapted and tried to overcome the deficiencies that we have and cumulatively what is happening [is it’s] adding up, and it’s impacting overall sailor quality of service,” Gray said.

An advantage of the shore command is the ability to take risks, Collins said. The command can try a new approach, and if it doesn’t work, try something else.

One area that could be adapted is the ability to do more underway maintenance in order to prevent longer time in the shipyard after a deployment, Gray said. There also needs to be a discussion about what maintenance must be done and what could be put off so that the ship can get back to the fleet.

“We often have the tendency to want to make everything perfect,” Gray said. “And it’s unaffordable. It drives longer maintenance periods, and we need to be able to say, to make compromises and to make smart decisions about the maintenance that we’re doing.”

Recliners line the movie room of a recently renovated Unaccompanied Housing facility at Naval Base Kitsap-Bremerton April 22, 2026. The Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command (NAVFAC) Northwest project delivers 304 modern beds for Sailors, directly supporting the Navy’s “No Sailor Lives Afloat” initiative and demonstrating a commitment to improving quality of life for service members. US Navy photo As CNIC, Gray worked on infrastructure projects, which included quality of life initiatives that led to the recent funding of a new unaccompanied housing project for Newport News, Va., USNI News previously reported, and bringing free Wi-Fi to barracks. The Navy currently stands at 90 percent of barracks with Wi-Fi.

Other projects included working with Dominion Energy to bring power-grid improvements to Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia, Coleen San Nicolas-Perez, Navy Installations Command public affairs deputy director told USNI News.

Collins will inherit the ongoing quality of life efforts under CNIC, prompted by the suicide deaths of sailors on USS George Washington (CVN-73) and at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Maintenance Center in 2022. This includes the Newport News barracks project and parking for the sailors whose ships are in the shipyard.

A photo of a renovated room in an Unaccompanied Housing (UH) building – commonly known as barracks – on Naval Base Kitsap-Bremerton. US Navy photo CNIC, under Gray, also inspected all of the Navy barracks, closing five substandard facilities, Vice Chief of Naval Operations James Kilby said Thursday during the change of command.

Quality of life initiatives are an ongoing challenge, Collins told USNI News ahead of the ceremony. As CNIC, he’ll be tasked with pushing the Navy to fund ongoing programs meant to get after such problems.

The Navy previously moved money around to accomplish the quality of life initiatives, but going forward, there needs to be a longstanding commitment from the Navy for the programs and CNIC plans, Gray said.

Gray is putting together a briefing for Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle that will lay out all of the infrastructure challenges in order to advocate for the appropriate funding.

“If we’re going to make meaningful and lasting change, we have to have a commitment from the Navy to, first and foremost, recognize the scope of the problem, and then commit to a program that will […] over time – it’s not going to happen in a day, it’s not going to happen in a year, it’s going to be over a number of years – to commit to a curve that gets us on an upward slope across all of our shore infrastructure,” Gray said.