Metal Shark expands to Croatia

Metal Shark of Jeanerette, La., has established a foothold across the Atlantic with the opening of a European engineering office. It is Metal Shark’s first location outside of America. Metal Shark Croatia is a new engineering facility recently opened in Rijeka on Croatia’s northern Adriatic coast. The facility employs about 20 naval architects, machinery systems engineers, and electrical engineers who collaborate with Metal Shark’s domestic engineering team in support of the company’s shipbuilding operations at its three U.S. facilities in Alabama and Louisiana. Efforts by Metal Shark are underway to significantly expand in Croatia by year’s end. The establishment of Metal Shark Croatia “allows us to scale up our engineering resources at a rate that would be otherwise impossible,” CEO Chris Allard said in announcing the European facility. Metal Shark has grown its U.S.-based engineering team and has expanded focus on autonomous technology, LNG, and hybrid propulsion systems and technologies. Following two years of world-wide research into engineering capabilities, Croatia was short-listed by the company. Its key attributes: Shipbuilding heritage, numbers of shipyards, technical expertise, and pool of highly trained naval architects and marine engineers. The Croatia facility uses the same advanced engineering software and project management systems of Metal Shark’s U.S. facilities. (Source: Metal Shark 03/13/19)