I was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. And if you know anything about Bethlehem, you probably know the company that helped put the city on the map: Bethlehem Steel.

Steel wasn’t just another industry in my family. It was our livelihood. My grandfather worked for Bethlehem Steel. So did my father, my uncles, and other members of my family. For generations, the company provided good-paying jobs and helped build the American middle class.

Then everything changed. American steelmaking began a long decline as foreign competition intensified and the industry struggled to adapt. Bethlehem Steel eventually filed for bankruptcy in 2001, and my dad was among the workers who lost their jobs as the company fell apart.

I saw firsthand what happens when an industry that supported generations of American families begins to disappear. That’s why an announcement last week caught my attention in a way most financial news never could.

A piece of Bethlehem Steel’s history is about to become part of America’s industrial future. And it involves a $6.6 billion investment, artificial intelligence, advanced robotics, and the next generation of American nuclear submarines.

Factory of the Future

Last Tuesday, President Trump traveled to Sparrows Point, Maryland, just outside Baltimore, to announce a massive new manufacturing facility from defense technology company Anduril Industries.

For those unfamiliar, Sparrows Point was once home to the largest steel mill in the world. Bethlehem Steel purchased the facility in 1916, and at its peak more than 30,000 people worked there, producing steel used in everything from the Golden Gate Bridge and Empire State Building to American warships.

But the steel mill eventually suffered the same fate as so many other American industrial facilities. After years of declining production and changing ownership, steelmaking ended at Sparrows Point in 2012.

Now Anduril is bringing a new kind of manufacturing to the same property.

The company plans to invest $3.7 billion in a two-million-square-foot facility called Arsenal-2. The U.S. Navy has also awarded Anduril a contract worth up to $2.9 billion, bringing the combined commitment to approximately $6.6 billion.

The facility will manufacture critical components for Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines, including torpedo tubes. And the project is expected to create more than 3,100 permanent jobs and support more than 14,000 jobs when indirect employment is included.

That’s a remarkable development for a location that once symbolized the decline of American manufacturing.

This Ain’t My Grandpa’s Shipyard

I’ve been talking for years about the convergence of technologies like AI, robotics, automation, and advanced manufacturing. This is what that convergence looks like in the real world.

Anduril isn’t planning to build another traditional shipyard filled with thousands of workers performing the same repetitive tasks their grandparents did. It’s building what the company calls a software-defined shipyard.

Think of it as a factory where advanced software helps coordinate nearly everything, from designing components to managing production and quality control. Robots and automated machines can handle repetitive, dangerous, or extremely precise tasks. AI can help engineers identify problems earlier, improve production schedules, and reduce waste.

The goal isn’t simply to build things with fewer people. It’s to build things faster, better, and more efficiently while creating a new generation of skilled manufacturing jobs.

And that brings me to a much bigger trend I’ve been watching closely: the reshoring of American manufacturing.

For decades, American companies moved factories overseas to take advantage of lower labor costs.

Now the equation is beginning to change. Supply-chain disruptions, national-security concerns, and advances in automation are encouraging companies to reconsider where they manufacture critical products. At the same time, billions of dollars are flowing into new semiconductor fabs, battery plants, data centers, defense facilities, and advanced manufacturing operations across the country.

And here’s the part I think gets overlooked: reshoring doesn’t mean bringing back the factories of 1975.

The factories coming back to America will look very different. They’ll use more robots, more AI, more sensors, more software, and more automation. And yes, some of the repetitive jobs that once required human workers will disappear.

But that doesn’t mean manufacturing jobs disappear with them.

The jobs change.

We’re not going back to recreate the industrial economy my grandfather knew. We’re building the next version of it.

Picks, Shovels, and Specialty Alloys

Anduril remains privately held, so most individual investors can’t simply buy shares in the company. But there are plenty of ways to invest in the broader revitalization of America’s industrial base.

Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) is one of America’s largest military shipbuilders and already plays an important role in producing nuclear-powered submarines. If the United States continues expanding and modernizing its shipbuilding capacity, companies like Huntington Ingalls sit directly in the middle of that spending.

Then there’s Curtiss-Wright (CW), which supplies highly engineered components and systems used in naval vessels, submarines, and other demanding industrial applications.

And one of my favorite ways to approach the broader manufacturing renaissance is through the materials that make these advanced machines possible. Carpenter Technology (CRS) produces specialty alloys designed to withstand extreme temperatures, pressure, and demanding operating conditions across aerospace, defense, and other advanced industries.

None of these companies is a guaranteed beneficiary of Anduril’s specific project. But they offer investors exposure to something much bigger than one factory in Maryland.

They offer exposure to the rebuilding and modernization of America’s industrial capabilities.

Forged in Bethlehem, Rebuilt in Baltimore

When I think about Bethlehem Steel, I don’t just think about blast furnaces, steel beams, or massive factories. I think about my family and the generations of Americans who went to work every day, built things with their hands, and helped create the industrial foundation of this country.

And I remember what happened when those jobs disappeared.

That’s why seeing a new manufacturing complex planned for Sparrows Point means something to me personally. The factories being built today won’t look like the ones my father and grandfather knew. They’ll have more robots, more computers, and more sophisticated technology.

But they’ll still need skilled workers. They’ll still support families. And they’ll still produce things America needs.

Bethlehem Steel helped build the America I was born into. Companies like Anduril are showing us what the next version of American manufacturing could look like.

And as an investor, I want to own the companies supplying the technology, equipment, and materials that will make that transformation possible.

P.S. If you come from Bethlehem, you learn early that nothing gets made without heat. Iron ore doesn’t become steel until the furnace gets hot enough, and the people who knew how to work that heat built this country.

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