Capt. Greg Burton took over command of Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard on Friday from Capt. Jamie Kalowsky at the facility, which has grown from about 4,800 civilian workers two years ago to about 5,200 now, the keynote speaker at the event said.

“We are marching toward a 355-ship Navy, and we’ll need the capacity to maintain them,” said Vice Adm. Thomas Moore, commander of the Naval Sea Systems Command.

Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility is the largest industrial employer in Hawaii, infusing about $1 billion into the state’s economy every year, the Navy said. Strategically, the shipyard is about a week’s steaming time closer to East Asia than the West Coast.

In addition to the civilian workforce of nearly 5,200, 543 Navy personnel are also part of the shipyard, an official said.

With the fleet size down to about 275 ships, nearly one-third of Navy ships are in maintenance at any given time, Moore said. Every delay puts further strain on the operational fleet, he said.

Building ships is a challenge, but maintaining them is by far the more challenging task, Moore said. It’s in that environment that demands on-time performance that Kalowsky excelled over the past three years, he said.

“Jamie, you and your workforce have been tremendous (in) overcoming these challenges,” Moore said before a gathering of more than 600 people, including hundreds of shipyard workers.

The shipyard under Kalowsky lowered lost operational days for submarines, delivered the sub USS Greeneville two weeks early after repairs and had “huge success” on the submarine USS Bremerton, Moore said.

Kalowsky turned over command of the shipyard to Burton on the front steps of the historic and tree-lined Building 1 at Pearl Harbor where the shipyard has administrative offices.

Kalowsky cited the progress the shipyard has made toward greater efficiency, and mentioned the job well done by dozens of shipyard workers he referenced by name.

“The question is no longer, How can we get our maintenance out of Hawaii? The question is, How much more maintenance can we do in Hawaii?” he said. “That is due to the credibility that you brought to this command by doing really hard things well.”

Last year Pearl Harbor became the pilot shipyard to receive “laboratory” status from the Office of Naval Research to develop new technologies and processes as part of an effort to potentially seek laboratory status for all naval shipyards.

Shipyard mechanics are now using lasers to weld critical surfaces on missile vertical launch tubes on submarines, Kalowsky said. Painters are on the cusp of a million-dollar process improvement to use lasers to ablate paint off metal, he added.

The shipyard is working below the surface with divers and engineers to put sensors on autonomous vehicles for underwater battle damage assessment, Kalowsky said.

Kalowsky is moving over to the Pacific Fleet Submarine Force as maintenance requirements, readiness and improvements officer.

Burton enlisted in the Navy as a nuclear machinist mate in 1986. Through the Nuclear Enlisted Commissioning Program, he attended the University of New Mexico and received a Navy commission in 1991. Burton earned his submarine dolphins while serving on the USS Kentucky.

Burton most recently was operations and product line officer at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.

“We have all seen the troubling developments in Southeast Asia,” Burton said Friday. Those events “require even more from our Navy to project power and reinforce the international order. The strategic importance of what we do here in the shipyard cannot be overstated.”