General Dynamics Electric Boat Facility, Rhode Island

General Dynamic's Electric Boat division operates a hull fabrication plant here, where large Navy vessels are assembled, mostly nuclear submarine hulls. The partially built vessels are barged to Electric Boat's main facility in Groton, Connecticut. The 169-acre shoreline facility is part of a larger former Naval Air Station, closed in the 1970's. Soon after closure, Electric Boat took over the site, and employed as many as 5,700 people here in the 1980's. Current employment is around 1,500. Quonset Point is the site where the Quonset Hut was originally fabricated in great quantity, by the SeaBees in WWII. The rest of the point has been redeveloped for various industrial uses, commercial distribution centers, and as a base for the state National Guard.