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28 | Boating Industry | April 2017 [ The Workforce Crisis ] www.BoatingIndustry.com MARINE TRADES ASSOCIATION EDUCATION OPENS YOUTH TO INDUSTRY One challenge the industry faces is a lack of awareness of the open jobs in marine trades and the lifelong careers they build. Marine trades associa- tions can introduce young people to the boating industry through a variety of educational programs. The Rhode Island Marine Trades Association offers a summer market- ing internship and a youth summer boatbuilding program to reach these young people. The internship offers college students interested in a marine industry marketing career experience in marketing, public relations and event planning and combines classroom sessions with on-the-job experi- ence with local marine companies. The six-week boatbuilding program is for students age 14 to 16 to learn about the local marine industry and its careers while having fun completing a hands-on boatbuilding project. The program includes training in basic hands-on skills combined with career exploration, leadership development and adult mentoring. "A lot of times, we are their fi rst exposure to whatever the recreational boating industry has," said Wendy Mackie, CEO of Rhode Island Marine Trades Association & Composites Alliance. The boatbuilding program is a natural fi rst introduction that RIMTA hopes encourages those teenagers to consider its pre-apprenticeship pro- gram (you can read more about this program on p. 32). "The idea is we want to expose people, when they're young enough, to the industry and all of the different types of careers that are available to them [so] they can then decide they want to … take additional program- ming," said Mackie. These programs are held at local high schools and are promoted through the school department. Mackie said much like when RIMTA is looking to engage employers by attending boat shows, the association le- verages existing locations and opportunities to engage those young people. "If you're going to a place that they already are familiar with, like [shining] a positive light on not just U.S. manufacturing, but Florida and regional manufacturing and job growth." Gardner is beginning to reach out to local elementary schools as well; the schools offer a Discover Program that highlights people who are doing well and motivated, and Gardner wants to get in front of those students. "It's great to get them in high school, but also in high school they're kind of already on a path. I want to show even younger kids that we're the kind of country that still makes things," he said. "The sooner we can start, the sooner we can expose kids to this type of industry, I think the better off we'll all be." Sea Ray participates in Classroom to Careers, a partnership with local high schools to bring students into businesses and expose them to manufacturing career opportunities. The company gives students an overview of the company at the school and buses them to the plant for a tour. Sea Ray has hired employees who are former stu- dents of the schools and will choose supervisors and managers who are alumni to lead the tour. "They could talk about that career path and how they got to where they are. Some of them had gone on to further their education past high school, some of them have not. So we selected those tour guides based on that so the students could really get that real-life [idea]," said Kellie Hood, director of human resources at Sea Ray. "This really happens, it's not something they can't really get behind." The tour ends with bringing the students on the water to see a fi nished boat so they can see the end result of all the steps in the tour they attended. "They were getting off the boat just super excited about, 'Wow I can't believe this is what it looks like' when they saw it coming all the way through assembly," said Hood. "I think that's our future employees and we need to engage early to educate them on the opportunities in manufacturing, and this is a great way to do that so that they can learn and make their decisions early and really deter- mine what they want to do." Educating students on the opportunities in manufacturing and al- lowing students to visualize themselves in those careers is much eas- ier when they see someone like themselves at the company. Some of the Melbourne High Business Academy's former students have been hired at SeaDek, and students who tour the Sea Ray plant have seen recent graduates who they knew working on the plant fl oor. "Until you come and visually see it, we can tell you all day long what we do here but it's amazing once you see what we do," said Hood. "We had students who actually showed interest in starting their careers here upon graduation." Gardner urges other manufacturers to engage in similar pro- grams with local schools to help address workforce shortages to help curb the continuing emphasis on a university track for high school graduates. "If we want to improve our workforce and the pool that we draw from, and improve our own economy in our own backyards, it's up to us to get out and do it," he said. » CASE STUDY #1: continued from previous page » CASE STUDY #2 The Rhode Island Marine Trades Association hosts youth education to expose local students to the industry.