NASSCO

The origin of NASSCO traces to 1905 and a small machine shop and foundry known as California Iron Works. In 1922 California Iron Works was taken over by United States National Bank of San Diego (USNB) and renamed National Iron Works. In 1933, USNB was bought by C. Arnholt Smith who thereby also took control of National Iron Works, which formed the first foundation of Smith's non-banking business activities in San Diego. USNB and National Iron Works were key elements in Smith's rise to becoming a San Diego business and political powerbroker in subsequent decades, including being first owner of the San Diego Padres. National Iron Works came with a shipyard, which expanded significantly during World War II.

In 1944 National Iron Works moved to its present location at 28th Street and Harbor Drive on San Diego Bay and in 1949 the company was renamed National Steel and Shipbuilding Co. to reflect the shipyard. National Iron Works built some important San Diego structures, such as some of the plants in which Convair manufactured aircraft for World War II. In this way, Smith came to have an interest in real estate and hotels. After the war, the shipyard made some of the first steel-hulled deep-sea purse seiner tuna boats, through which Smith consolidated local tuna businesses, controlling both ships and the canneries. These business were grouped into Smith's later holding company, Westgate-California Corporation.

However, in 1959 Smith sold National Steel and Shipbuilding to four other corporations, including Kaiser Industries and Morrison-Knudsen. In 1979 Morrison-Knudsen bought out Kaiser's share, and in 1989 management acquired the company from Morrison-Knudsen via an employee stock ownership plan.

In 1940 the company's ironworkers organized into a union. By 1979 the company had 7,900 employees organized into six unions. There was a labor strike in 1988 in which employees demanded a minimum wage of $12 per hour. A 25-day strike in 1992 resulted in workers returning to work without a contract. In 1996, a further strike hit the company. Around 2,700 employees stayed home while 50 marched in front of the company with picket signs.

In 1991, NASSCO established the subsidiary manufacturing facility of Tecnologias Internacionales de Manufactura, S.A. de C.V. (TIMSA) located in Mexicali, Mexico.

In 1998 General Dynamics bought NASSCO in a $415 million deal.

On October 31, 2011, General Dynamics-NASSCO acquired Metro Machine Corp, a surface-ship repair company in Norfolk, Virginia, and renamed it NASSCO-Norfolk. The company had been conducting ship repairs and conversions for the U.S. Navy since 1972. NASSCO-Norfolk has two locations in Norfolk and Portsmouth VA. The NASSCO-Norfolk shipyard had the newest dry dock in the country, with two auto-start generators, automated ballast control system and automated ship hauling and centering system.

In December of 2014, NASSCO established NASSCO-Bremerton in Washington and NASSCO-Mayport in Florida, in support of expanding NASSCO's Repair capabilities across the nation.