Shipbuilders Council of America honors Bollinger’s two-decade plus legacy of industry-leading safety performance
LOCKPORT, La. — May 26, 2026 — Bollinger Shipyards (“Bollinger”) today announced that for the 21st year in a row it has earned the Excellence in Safety Award from the Shipbuilders Council of America (SCA), a streak that stands as one of the longest in the award’s history and a benchmark no other U.S. shipbuilder has matched.
Bollinger has received the SCA’s Excellence in Safety Award every year since 2005. Across 13 facilities, through economic cycles and industry headwinds, the company’s more than 3,700 shipbuilders have maintained injury and illness rates consistently well below the national shipbuilding average.
“Twenty-one consecutive years of excellence in safety reflects the dedication of the men and women who show up every day and look out for each other,” said Ben Bordelon, President and CEO of Bollinger Shipyards. “Safety is not a program we run, it is the culture we live. It has been built by our people on the deck plates, every single shift, across every facility. Every member of our 3,700-plus workforce understands that protecting our people is the first step toward delivering world-class vessels on time and on budget. This recognition belongs to every one of them.”
Safety at Bollinger is reinforced through deliberate investment in how the company trains its people. The fourteen-week Shipfitter and Welder apprenticeship bootcamps, launched in 2024, embed safety standards from day one, feeding graduates directly into Bollinger’s registered apprenticeship track. The program’s impact has been immediate: the most recent session drew 1,200 applicants for available spots. Bollinger was also named a recipient of the 2025 LWCC Safest 70 Award, presented by the Louisiana Workers’ Compensation Corporation to employers that exceed statewide safety benchmarks.
To qualify for an SCA Excellence in Safety Award, member shipyards must submit injury and illness data for all four quarters, report zero fatalities for the year, and either achieve a total recordable incident rate (TRIR) below the SCA average or reduce their TRIR by at least 10 percent compared to the prior year. Bollinger has met that standard every year since 2005 without interruption, with incident rates consistently well below the national shipbuilding average.
About Bollinger Shipyards
Bollinger Shipyards (www.bollingershipyards.com) has an 80-year legacy as a leading designer and builder of high-performance military patrol boats and salvage vessels, research vessels, ocean-going double hull barges, offshore oil field support vessels, tugboats, rigs, lift boats, inland waterways push boats, barges, and other steel and aluminum products from its new construction shipyards as part of the U. S. industrial base. Bollinger has 13 facilities, all strategically located throughout Louisiana and Mississippi with direct access to the Gulf of America, the Mississippi River and the Intracoastal Waterway. Bollinger is the largest vessel repair company in the Gulf of America region.
About the Shipbuilders Council of America
Shipbuilders Council of America (SCA) members constitute the shipyard industrial base that builds, repairs, maintains and modernizes U.S. Navy ships and craft, U.S. Coast Guard vessels of all sizes, as well as vessels for other U.S. government agencies. In addition, SCA members build, repair and service America’s fleet of commercial vessels. The Council represents 40 companies that own and operate over 82 shipyards, with facilities on all three U.S. coasts, the Great Lakes, the inland waterways system, Alaska and Hawaii. SCA also represents 87 partner members that provide goods and services to the shipyard industry. You can learn more by visiting https://shipbuildersusa.org/.