October 12, 2023: Ocean Aero relocated to Gulfport from San Diego, California two years ago. Today, the compnay celebrated the grand opening of its headquarters at the port of Gulfport. Ocean Aero is only company in the world that created the world’s first and only autonomous underwater and surface vehicle.
“It’s an exciting day to be on the port of Gulfport. We are cutting the ribbon for our newest tenant Ocean Aero. They are establishing their headquarters and manufacturing facility right here on the port,” Gulfport Port CEO Jon Nass said.
The vehicles, also called TRITONs, collect data both above and below the ocean surface. The information can be valuable for the U.S. military.
“The autonomous vehicles today are what we call distributed power. It takes a lot of money and time to build these capital ships. Some of America’s adversaries are building them faster and arguably when dealing with less quality than ours but quantity has a quality of its own when dealing with gigantic distances in these larger oceans, “Ocean Aero CEO Kevin Decker said. “These autonomous vehicles are ways that we can be in more places at once with limited resources and being able to do that with the same deterrence that we have had in these capital ships.”
Governor Tate Reeves, U.S. senators Roger Wicker, Cindy Hyde-Smith, Gulfport Mayor Billy Hewes and other state and local officials attended the event. Visitors got a chance to see TRITONs out in the water. 46 vehicles have already been built, the majority developed right here in Mississippi.
“This is an uncrude ocean-building vessel that can be lethal on the surface and then when it needs to it can disappear and then become a submarine and it stays out there for over a year without coming back to refuel. It is a game changer, it’s state of the art and we are doing it here in Mississippi,” Wicker said.
The company has grown from 17 employees to 65 currently. Decker said the facility has the option to secure 500 employees full-time and can produce 600 TRITONs a year.
