Homer Lenoir Ferguson (March 6, 1873 – March 14, 1953) was an author and businessman. He was president of Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company in Newport News, Virginia, from July 22, 1915, through July 31, 1946. Biography Ferguson was born in Waynesville, North Carolina on March 6, 1873. At the age of fifteen he entered the United States Naval Academy and graduated at the head of his class in 1892. His education continued at the Glasgow University from 1892 through 1895, where he studied naval architecture. While in the Navy he served as assistant naval constructor. He was at the Columbian Iron Works, Baltimore, Maryland, 1895–1896; at the Navy Yard, Portland, Oregon, 1896–1899; the Navy Yard, Bremerton, Washington, 1899–1900; at the Bath Iron Works, in Bath, Maine as Superintending Naval Constructor, 1900–1902; the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company at Newport News, Virginia, 1902–1904; and with the Bureau of Construction and Repair. Washington, D.C., 1904–1905. In 1905 Ferguson resigned from the Navy and became assistant superintendent of Construction for Newport News Shipbuilding. During the next ten years, as Superintendent and later as general manager, he not only built up the physical property of the plant and improved methods of operation, but strengthened the personnel chiefly by the development of the young men in the organization. It was under Ferguson that the Apprentice School was founded to develop and train shipbuilders. On May 7, 1915, shipyard president Albert L. Hopkins was traveling to England on the RMS Lusitania when he died after the ship was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat off Queenstown on the Irish coast. Another 127 Americans also lost their lives. The Lusitania incident was among the events that brought the United States into World War I. When Albert Hopkins died, Ferguson had been a vice president in the company for three years. By a unanimous decision by the company's Board of directors, he was elected to the presidency the following August. In that capacity, he was to see the company through both world wars. As war clouds loomed over the U.S. in 1917, Ferguson had a major role in the development of Hilton Village, located just northwest of the shipyard. In January 1918, Ferguson appeared before a United States Senate subcommittee investigating shipyard conditions. Ferguson was very persuasive regarding the impact of the war effort on the lack of housing for shipyard workers.