Inside the Castle - Ep. 176 - Deepening Our Arteries: Reforming National Dredging

Dredging serves as the critical, often unseen foundation of global trade, national defense, and supply chain resilience. In this episode of Inside the Castle, hosts Reagan Lauritzen and Amy Snively sit down with Ms. Erica Janocha, Dredging Program Manager at U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Headquarters, to discuss how USACE is modernizing the way it delivers the Nation’s dredging mission.

The conversation explores USACE’s shift toward a more coordinated, enterprise approach to dredging through the Dredging Evolution for Enterprise Production (DEEP) Team and future Enterprise Dredging Delivery Center. By leveraging consolidated buying power, innovative contracting strategies, standardized processes, and greater visibility across the national workload, USACE is working to reduce duplicative acquisition efforts, improve efficiency and predictability, strengthen industry competition, and deliver greater value for the taxpayer. The episode also explores the broader dredging mission—from balancing environmental and economic priorities to recapitalizing the federal dredging fleet—to ensure the Nation’s ports, harbors, and waterways remain reliable and ready to support commerce and national security.