Bath Iron Works (BIW) is located on the Kennebec River in Bath, Maine. Since it was founded in 1884, BIW has built private, commercial, and military vessels. Its biggest customer has been the U.S. Navy, for which BIW has built (and often designed) battleships, frigates, cruisers, and destroyers, including the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer—the most advanced surface warship in the world. BIW was purchased in 1995 by General Dynamics. BIW has since at least the 1970s been the largest private employer in the state of Maine, though that title may recently have slipped to the Hannaford grocery chain.
In World War II, the toughness of warships launched by Maine workers gave rise to the saying: "Bath-built is best-built". In 1988, the USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58), commissioned two years earlier at Bath, survived a mine explosion that tore a hole in its engine room and flooded two compartments.
"A Bath boat is the Stradivarius of destroyers!"
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