Keel, a South Carolina defense manufacturer that builds steel structures for Navy submarines and aircraft carriers, opened a new Prep and Paint Facility on Thursday, Oct. 29, at the Keel Yonges Island shipyard in Charleston County. The building is the first piece of a planned $67 million expansion that the company expects to create 170 new jobs.
Keel has invested more than $43 million in the region so far, Live 5 News reported from the ribbon cutting. The $67 million and 170-job figures were announced in October 2025, when the South Carolina Department of Commerce said the investment would add jobs at the Yonges Island shipyard. The state’s Coordinating Council for Economic Development approved job development credits tied to the project, according to that release.
“This facility strengthens manufacturing capability, creates opportunity for workforce growth in the region, and helps build much-needed capacity and capability to meet enduring national defense requirements.”
A U.S. Navy official at the Oct. 29 ceremony, as reported by Live 5 News
What Keel Builds
Keel is headquartered in Ladson, north of Charleston. The state describes it as “an advanced manufacturer of submarine modules and components, aircraft carrier components, and other complex structures for the U.S. Navy and broader defense industry.” The Yonges Island site sits at 4194 Highway 165 in Meggett, southwest of Charleston.
On its website, Keel says it partners with premier defense manufacturers to build submarine and aircraft carrier modules using fracture-critical steel fabrication built to Naval Sea Systems Command standards. The capabilities it lists for that work include deep-water access, heavy lift and transportation, automated cladding, complex forming, NAVSEA-certified welding and blasting, painting and coatings. That is heavy steel work of the kind done by companies in our steel manufacturers list, held to nuclear Navy quality rules.
The site has deep roots. Charleston County Council Chairman Joe Boykin said at the ceremony that the business traces back to the Corbin family in 1962, more than six decades of manufacturing on Yonges Island, Live 5 News reported.
Why Paint Matters to a Shipyard
Painting sounds like a finishing touch. On a warship it is a production step with its own schedule. Large steel sections have to be blasted, prepped and coated to Navy specifications, and every section that arrives at a shipyard still needing that work takes up yard space, labor and time.
The new building lets Keel paint larger, completed structural sections before they ship to its shipbuilding customers, according to Live 5 News. Keel CEO Brian Carter said the capability lets the company add more value to each component it produces, and he called it an important step toward its goal of delivering fully outfitted submarine modules.
“Fully outfitted” is the key phrase. A bare steel section is one thing. A module that arrives already painted and fitted with piping, wiring and equipment is far more of the ship, and it means fewer labor hours at the final assembly yard.
One finished product was on display at the opening: a structural section for the future USS Enterprise (CVN-80), a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier under construction at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia, a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries.
The Navy Shipbuilding Supply Chain Is Stretched
Only two American shipyards can build nuclear-powered ships, and Newport News is the only one that builds nuclear aircraft carriers, according to the Congressional Research Service. The same two yards build the Navy’s Virginia-class attack submarines, and they are also building the new Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines.
The Columbia-class program is the Navy’s top acquisition priority, according to remarks at Thursday’s ceremony, and the Navy has called it its top priority program since 2013, CRS reports. Starting with the third boat in fiscal 2026, the Navy wants to buy one Columbia-class submarine a year. It is also working to raise Virginia-class production to two boats a year, and later to 2.33 a year.
The yards can’t do all of that work inside their own fences. The Navy’s answer is what it calls strategic outsourcing: moving the fabrication of submarine structures and components to qualified suppliers in other states. CRS says the submarine construction industrial base includes about 16,000 suppliers in all 50 states, and that about 70% of the critical suppliers for building submarines are sole-source suppliers. Congress has put billions of dollars into submarine industrial base funding since fiscal 2018, for both shipyard facilities and supplier development.
That is the opening for companies like Keel. Every section a supplier can deliver painted and outfitted is work the shipyard does not have to do, and every new qualified supplier makes the base less dependent on a single source.
Lowcountry Jobs From the Keel Yonges Island Expansion
The expansion also lands in a rural part of Charleston County. “We talk a lot about economic growth in Charleston County, but it’s important that the opportunities it creates reach every corner of our community,” Boykin said, according to Live 5 News.
He said the jobs could let local families build careers without leaving home. “They mean good-paying careers, opportunities for local families, and the abilities for more of our neighbors to build a future right here in the communities they call home,” Boykin said.
When the project was announced, Gov. Henry McMaster called it “another significant win for our state’s manufacturing and defense industries” and said South Carolina’s workforce “continues to be a foundation for our existing companies to find sustained success,” in the governor’s release. Carter said then that the expansion “will enable Keel to add much-needed capacity and better help our U.S. Navy meet its stringent shipbuilding requirements.”
What to Watch
- Building 2. Carter said the next building is expected to break ground in about three months. That would put a start in early 2027 if the schedule holds.
- Building 3. Keel is still working to finalize funding for the third building, Carter said. The company has not said what it will house.
- The jobs. The 170 jobs are a company plan. Keel has not given a hiring timeline. Watch its careers page and county updates for hiring numbers.
- Submarine modules. Carter’s stated goal is fully outfitted submarine modules. Any new module work would show up as a supplier award from a prime shipbuilder; none was announced at the opening.
For more companies building hulls, boats and marine structures, see our boat manufacturers list.
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