07/23/2020- Lockheed Martin and Fincantieri Marinette Marine marked the beginning of construction of LCS 29, the future USS Beloit, with a keel laying ceremony in Marinette yesterday. As part of a ship-building tradition dating back centuries, a shipyard worker welded into the ship’s keel plate the initials of Major General Retired Marcia Anderson who is the USS Beloit ship sponsor and a Beloit, Wisconsin, native. During a long career with the U.S. military, Major General Anderson became the first African American woman to obtain the rank of major general in the U. S. Army and U. S. Army Reserve. LCS 29 is the first Navy ship to be named after Beloit, Wisconsin and Maj. Gen. Anderson says naming the LCS after the city of Beloit, with its history of supporting the nation’s security, is more than fitting.

LCS 29 will be the 15th Freedom-variant LCS and will join a class of more than 30 ships. To date, four Freedom-variant LCS have deployed to support U.S. Navy presence and peacekeeping missions. Joe DePietro with Lockheed Martin says the LCSs being built locally are unlike any other warship in the water today.

Beloit is one of six LCS in various stages of construction and test at the Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyard.