Ingalls Shipbuilding appoints new director of communications and public affairs

Jim McIngvale has been named director of communications and public affairs at HII’s Ingalls Shipbuilding division. Ingalls has combined its communications department and its government and community affairs department into a single organization called communications and public affairs, the shipbuilding company said on Monday.

The new department will be responsible for Ingalls’ brand and image, both inside the shipyard and in the community. It will manage all internal communications programs, special events and audiovisual services and will coordinate external communications and media initiatives with HII corporate communications. The organization will lead and support Ingalls’ relationships with state, local and regional governments and community-based organizations. It will also continue its support of HII corporate government affairs.

McIngvale has been an Ingalls employee since 1977 and has held positions of increasing responsibility, including photographer, senior communications editor, director of public relations and advertising, director of communications and special events, and, for the past several years, director of government and community affairs. He received his bachelor’s degree in political science and journalism from the University of Mississippi in 1976.

McIngvale serves as vice president of the board of directors of the Mississippi World Trade Center. He also serves on the board of governors of the Mississippi Economic Council, and he represents Jackson County on the board of trustees of Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College. In October, he will be named chairman of the board of the Mississippi Manufacturers Association.

In 2012, McIngvale was appointed by Gov. Phil Bryant as a commissioner of Go Coast 2020, charged with defining how key priorities and leveraged resources can help overcome challenges faced by the Coast in the aftermath of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. He is co-chair of Go Coast’s Workforce GoTeam.

He is a past chairman of both the Jackson County Chamber of Commerce and the Jackson County Economic Development Foundation and is currently vice chair of the Mississippi Military Communities Council.

About Huntington Ingalls Industries
Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) is America’s largest military shipbuilding company and a provider of engineering, manufacturing and management services to the nuclear energy, oil and gas markets. For more than a century, HII’s Newport News and Ingalls shipbuilding divisions in Virginia and Mississippi have built more ships in more ship classes than any other U.S. naval shipbuilder. Headquartered in Newport News, Virginia, HII employs nearly 35,000 people operating both domestically and internationally.