Sparrow Point Foundation
Blast furnaces, stoves and rail sidings of the Bethlehem Steel mill at Sparrows Point, Maryland, in 1940

Sparrow Point

A nonpartisan foundation for the U.S. and allied industrial base.

Sparrows Point, Maryland, 1940. Photograph by John Vachon.

In the 1950s, Sparrows Point was the largest steel plant in the world. It closed in 2012. Now the ground is being rebuilt.

1891. Steelmaking begins at Sparrows Point, on the Patapsco River outside Baltimore, chosen for its deep water and its rail.

The ammunition ship USS Suribachi sliding down the ways between scaffolding at the Sparrows Point shipyard
1955. The shipyard launches the Navy ammunition ship USS Suribachi. More than 30,000 people work the point.

2012. The last steel.

About 2,000 jobs go with it, after 121 years of steel on the point.

Aerial view of rail lines, warehouses and the Tradepoint Atlantic water tower on the former mill site
2023. Since 2014 the 3,300-acre site has been rebuilt as Tradepoint Atlantic.
The Virginia-class attack submarine Minnesota in dry dock at Newport News Shipbuilding, with workers along its hull
Next. Anduril has pledged $3.7 billion for Arsenal-2, a shipyard on the same ground that will build sections of Virginia-class submarines like Minnesota, shown here at Newport News in 2012.

Our part. The rooms.

Sparrow Point Foundation brings together the people doing the rebuilding, from the companies that make things to the buyers and investors behind them.

What happened at Sparrows Point happened across the industrial base. The rebuilding is the work we exist for.

35% fewer Americans work in manufacturing than at the 1979 peak, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

200× China’s shipbuilding capacity compared with America’s, by an Office of Naval Intelligence estimate.

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Forty years of falling manufacturing employment” (2020) · Office of Naval Intelligence briefing slide, reported by The War Zone, “Alarming Navy Intel Slide Warns of China’s 200 Times Greater Shipbuilding Capacity” (2023)

Why now

An unmanned speedboat with a radar dome in the foreground and a sail-shaped Saildrone behind it, on dark water at dusk below desert mountains
A Saildrone Explorer and a Devil Ray T-38, both uncrewed, in the Gulf of Aqaba during Eager Lion, 2022. U.S. Navy photo.

Dual-use technology has collapsed the distance between commercial markets and national power. An AI model or a drone ships as a commercial product and gets used as a tool of national power at the same time.

The institutions that handle technology, capital, industrial capacity, and deterrence still handle them one at a time.

An Abrams tank hull hangs from an overhead crane on the production line at Lima, Ohio
An Abrams hull on the line at Joint Systems Manufacturing Center, Lima, 2021.

Industrial capacity is the piece furthest behind. Defense programs stall after the prototype, in testing and full-rate production. A capability with no line and no second source deters nobody.

Our mission

A stronger industrial base for the United States and its allies.

Sparrow Point Foundation educates and convenes toward that one end, with allies and partners including NATO, AUKUS, Japan, and Taiwan. That means the workers, the companies, the capital, and the public institutions that build and field defense and critical infrastructure capability.

Allied warships underway in formation on the Baltic Sea
Deterrence that holds abroad. NATO ships in formation, BALTOPS 2015.
Two shipyard workers on a lift power-washing a ship's hull
And the people who do the work at home. Shipyard workers at NASSCO, San Diego, 2013.

How we work

Convene

Small rooms, off the record. We put practitioners who rarely share a room into one. Nothing said there is for attribution.

Solve

We source real, unclassified problems from operators and infrastructure owners, then put engineers and founders against them with mentorship and expert judging.

Publish

What comes out of the rooms will go back to the field in writing: where the supply chain is thin, where requirements and capital fail to meet, and what it takes to keep skilled people in the work. Free to read.

Convenings

Both convenings
Attendees shaking hands at the New York National Security Forum reception

New York National Security Forum

Two days in New York City. Next: September 28–29, 2027.

 A five-person panel on stage beneath an American flag at SoCal Deep Tech Week

SoCal Deep Tech Week

Southern California. Next: May 25–26, 2027.

Supported by

All supporters

The rebuilding starts in a room

Sparrows Point took decades to build and decades to lose. Our convenings put the people rebuilding the base in one room. Next: New York, September 28–29, 2027, and Southern California, May 25–26, 2027.

See the convenings

To support the Foundation or partner on a convening, write to [email protected].