Western Shipyard’s General Director Arnoldas Šileika started to work as foreman
in the yard 22 years ago, when it still was under Soviet rule. He has been head of this
huge company since 2001, leading the transformation from Soviet times and thinking.

Western Shipyard’s General Director Arnoldas Šileika interviewed by Aage Myhre
aage.myhre@VilNews.com

I've been here before. I recall this as I pass through the guard building and the strict access control point that is the entrance to this huge shipyard furthest to the west in the Klaipeda port area. And well within the shipbuilding area, memories start flowing. I'm starting to remember details from my visit here 20 years ago, when the shipyard still was very 'semi-Soviet'.

I see the tremendously long, Soviet-like buildings, and walk along the one that is supposed to be the administrative headquarter. I finally get to the building’s end, closest to the sea, with a feeling of having gone back in time. But this feeling gradually fades as I get inside, climb the stairs to the 4th floor and walk into the corridors which are now colourful and nicely renovated, with pictures of new, modern ships and platforms on the walls. The pictures of Lenin and other communist symbols have miraculously disappeared since my last visit…

The secretaries in front of the general director's office still sit in the same reception room as by then. But now the dark, gloomy desktops are replaced with light, modern furniture, and the Soviet weightlifter-ladies have been replaced with beautiful and inviting young women, even speaking English very nicely…

And, believe it or not, the door to the general director's office is wide open! This time, there is no secretary humbly approaching the boss in his highness’ fortress behind armoured doors to ask if he graciously could accept to receive the visitor. No, now it’s the boss himself who comes smilingly out of the huge director-room, with an outstretched hand and a jovial 'welcome to our Western Shipyard! "

Hmm ... Times have obviously changed...

Western Shipyard started operations in 1969. The plan was that 9.000 people would work here.

Arnold Šileika pulls me into his office and offers a seat at the conference table in front of his desk. The tables are as large as they were 20 years ago, but now in modern, bright design. He offers me coffee, and I accept. But then I come to think that the last time I got coffee here I was served a strange sweet-sour mixture of sugar, water and coffee grounds that were almost impossible to mix into the water no matter how vehemently I used the teaspoon. Hairs rise on the back of my neck just by the thought.

But, of course, what is now being placed in front of me is obviously produced by an Italian coffee machine, and the scent is unmistakably genuine freshly brewed aromatic coffee. 

My first question to the Director is related to the shipyard's history. 

History – from Soviet colossus to European greatness
And Arnold Šileika is willingly telling me that the history of AB ”Vakarų laivų gamykla“ (VLG) – the Western Shipyard – started in 1966, when the construction started for a specialized ship repair yard very much directed towards Soviet’s huge fishing fleet.  According to the project the yard would be the biggest and the most modern in Soviet’s northwestern region, also the biggest one in Klaipeda – with a 50 hectares territory, 3 km of quays, 100.000 square meters of production workshops and 9.000 employees.

The official opening of the Western Shipyard took place in 1969, and the first ship was put in a dock for repair that same summer 42 years ago.

The shipyard never became as big as forecasted, and in 1975 the company still had ‘only’ 2.600 employees repairing trawlers, refrigerators, plants, and fishing vessels.

After the downfall of the USSR, the huge fishing fleet became a burden for Lithuania. Ships were sold or written down to scrap. In 1993 the company restructured its activity and turned to repair of vessels from Western countries. Since then the company has been constantly strengthening its position in the markets, first of all in Western Europe. 

AB "Vakarų laivų gamykla" was bought and privatized by the Estonian BLRT Grupp Concern in 2001. In 2003 the company was reorganized into the AB "Vakarų laivų gamykla" group with 23 companies within the activity fields of ship repair and modification, ship building, stevedoring and storage services, metal construction production, metal processing, hot galvanization, transport services, procurement, and more. 

 In 2010, Danish Odense Steel Shipyard sold its Baltijos Shiprepar yeard in Klaipeda to the BLRT Group, giving the group additional capacities, enlarging BLRT’s technical and logistical levels in developing shipbuilding in Lithuania and Estonia.

In 2007, Western Shipyard and the Norwegian company “Fiskerstrand Verft” established the joint company ”Fiskerstrand BLRT“ to deal with ship building, marketing, project management and more. The shipyard has since built several vessels for Fiskerstrand , together right now in the process of completing the construction of world's largest gas-powered ferry – for 600 passengers and 242 cars – for the Norwegian company Fjord1, one of the Norway's largest transport groups operating 63 car ferries, more than 500 busses and goods vehicles. This is one of the largest shipbuilding projects ever in Lithuania, with a total value of LTL 163.6 million (EUR 47,3 million).

Today - dramatic lack of workforce in Lithuania
Arnold Šileika has been working in the Western Shipyard since 1989, first as foreman, then as the company’s General Director for the last ten years. The company has now 2.000 employees, plus 1.000 more working on the territory for the shipyard on contract basis, totally 3.000 persons.

"You have, in other words, seen the whole transition from having been Soviet-ruled to becoming a Western company," I state.

And the director responds, still just as open and straight forward, that the biggest challenge has been to get workers to change their mentality from eastern to western ways of thinking.

"But now, today, the biggest challenge is actually to find people who want to work here," he says. "This despite the fact that we pay almost twice as high wages as what the labour market in Lithuania in general offers. We actually have had to start to bring in workers from Bulgaria and Romania to fulfill our obligations," he says.

Great importance for Klaipeda and Lithuania
The meeting with Arnold Šileika is nearing its end, and he invites me for a drive around the area that the shipyard  disposes. The area is simply too big to cover on foot...

Aha, I think, now it’s probably soon time to again experience an authentic Soviet, black Volga with plush seats and curtains for the windows. The memories from 20 years ago have not let go yet, and I foresee a drive among rusting,  sinking ship  wrecks  and a yard area full of old iron scrap, oil spills, creaking quay cranes and thousands of workers who are yelling at each other under the supervision of foremen who would make even the most hardened Soviet colonels to  look bleak.

The director's car is a new Lexus, hybrid version ... The yard is dry, clean and tidy. The docked or moored vessels are all freshly painted and beautiful, almost exclusively from Western European countries. Nobody is yelling...

It finally begins to dawn on me that the Soviet times are over. That Lithuania has become a country with modern industry and service companies fully on a par with western countries.

The director's calm and professional voice reinforces this impression as he drives me around, explaining that my home country Norway is the most important partner for his Western Shipyard, but that he also supplies ships and other equipment to Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Italy and Russia. He says that the yard each year  builds 10-12 vessels for these countries - ferries, tugboats, fishing and cargo vessels, plus boats and structures for  offshore projects, and much more. He mentions especially a truly unique project that the yard completed two years ago; to build the jackup vessel Windlift 1 for an offshore windmill park. This was the largest project ever throughout the history of the Western Shipyard.

The shipyard also repairs different kinds of vessels, 100-120 every year.

The Jackup vessel Windlift I, completed in 2009, is the largest project ever throughout the history of Western Shipyard.

The General Director also tells me that Western Shipyard is the largest company in Klaipeda, also one of Lithuania's  largest. He says that 90% of what the shipyard produces is exported, and that the company therefore is very important for the country’s trade balance and more. That also Klaipeda city enjoys very good benefits from the yard, that many families have their incomes from here, and that numerous shipyard partners in the west come here and leave important money in hotels, restaurants and shops.

“We are ready to accept many more contracts from Europe and other continents within vessel building or repairs. We can guarantee that we are competitive pricewise and that our quality is very high,” concludes General Director Arnold Šileika of Klaipeda’s Western Shipyard as he parks his Lexus just behind my car to see me off.

And I believe him. My initial expectation of finding a small Soviet spot here is gone. The director has convinced me that the company I now leave behind me is top modern, fully on par with shipyards in USA, Asia or Europe…

Western Shipyard’s General Director Arnold Šileika has reason to be proud of his company’s accomplishments.