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24 Maritime Professional 2Q 2011 I f Brian Pope is not the obvious choice to be Maritime Professional magazine’s first ever featured maritime pro- fessional, then perhaps the notion of who and what we consider to be important on the waterfront should be rethought. As a perfect example, Pope’s influence on electri- cal propulsion and the development of electrical systems afloat has been nothing short of profound. And, while the typ- ical ship’s engineer might not know his name, Pope’s work will likely impact how ships move through the water for gen- erations to come. DEFINING POPE’S ROLE FOR L-3 As Senior Vice President of Business Development for L-3 Communications / Marine & Power Systems Group, Brian Pope has, since joining L-3 in late 2004, been instrumental in growing the Marine Group to over $1 billion in revenues in 2009 with over 45% in the Commercial sector alone. There, L-3 supplies Electrical Propulsion, Automation and Navigation systems. Pope adds, “L-3 M&PS is a global marine group and although our commercial orders dipped in the 2008-2009 timeframe when the industry stalled, we had a strong backlog of orders that allowed us to weather that downturn and allowed us to position our commercial business for the recovery. In addition, we took the opportunity to invest in a new NACOS Platinum control and automation architecture, which has already delivered over 150 new orders.” For Pope and L-3 in particular, the advent of dynamic posi- tioning equipment has been an exciting development. The NACOS Platinum control and automation architecture has been at the heart of L-3’s efforts in this sector. He explains, “As part of our development in the new NACOS Platinum automation system, we have integrated our dynamic ship positioning modules into the same hardware, allowing com- mon hardware architecture for a complete ship system. This provides major opportunities to provide reduced costs to ship owners and we are seeing this as a significant competitive advantage in the marketplace.” As Pope looks to grow and maintain L-3’s market share, he describes a management style that is very much a hands-on type of approach. “I spend a majority of my time meeting with our customers throughout the world and visiting our operations. We continue to seek to expand L-3’s product and systems portfolio by development or acquisition and are also focused on continuing our organic growth,” he said. That’s not to say it has been all wine and roses along the way. He adds, “The slowdown in military shipbuilding across the world definitely provides a challenge to our business, and our divisions addressing this segment of our market. However, the growth in our passenger cruise shipbuilding business is a testimony to our bridge to propeller capability and offerings.” POPE’S ELECTRICITY A member of the American Society of Naval Engineers (ASNE), Pope has also been associated with the Marine Industry for over 25 years. Notably, and prior to joining L-3, Mr. Pope held senior positions with ALSTOM in North America, including President-U.S.A. and Regional Vice President-North America for ALSTOM Transmission & Distribution, a $400 million Business with 1,300 employees. He served as President ALSTOM Industry Group-North America from 2000 to 2001. Prior to this, Brian served as P Profile Brian Pope, SVP, L-3 Communications/Marine & Power Systems Group MarPro Profile
