<P> On 3 January 2007, former United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced that the aircraft carrier would be named after Ford during a eulogy for President Ford at Grace Episcopal Church in East Grand Rapids, Michigan . Rumsfeld indicated that he had personally told Ford of the honor during a visit to his home in Rancho Mirage a few weeks before Ford's death . This makes the aircraft carrier one of the few U.S. ships named after a living person . Later in the day, the Navy confirmed that the aircraft carrier would indeed be named after the former President . On 16 January 2007, Navy Secretary Donald Winter officially named CVN - 78 USS Gerald R. Ford . Ford's daughter Susan Ford Bales was named the ship's sponsor . The announcements were made at a Pentagon ceremony attended by Vice President Dick Cheney, Senators Warner (R - VA) and Levin (D - MI), Major General Guy C. Swan III, Bales, Ford's other three children, and others . </P> <P> The USS America Carrier Veterans Association (CVA) had pushed to name the ship USS America . The CVA is an association of sailors who served aboard USS America (CV - 66). The carrier was decommissioned in 1996 and scuttled in the Atlantic, as part of a damage test of large deck aircraft carriers in 2005, and LHA - 6 was named America . </P> <P> On 10 September 2008, the U.S. Navy signed a $5.1 billion contract with Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding in Newport News, Virginia, to design and construct the carrier . Northrop had begun advance construction of the carrier under a $2.7 billion contract in 2005 . The carrier was constructed at the Huntington Ingalls (formerly Northrop Grumman) Newport News Shipbuilding facilities in Newport News, Virginia, which employs 19,000 workers . </P> <P> The keel of the new warship was ceremonially laid on 14 November 2009 in Dry Dock 12 by Ford's daughter, Susan Ford Bales . In a speech to the assembled shipworkers and DoD officials, Bales said: "Dad met the staggering challenges of restoring trust in the presidency and healing the nation's wounds after Watergate in the only way he knew how--with complete honesty and integrity . And that is the legacy we remember this morning ." </P>

Where was the uss gerald ford ship built