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April 2017 | Boating Industry | 29 [ The Workforce Crisis ] www.BoatingIndustry.com MARINE SCHOOLS OFFER BASE EDUCATION Marine trades schools offer students the opportunity to learn specifi - cally about the boating industry and its intricacies at the high school and post-secondary level. While these students may require additional training beyond their education, the base provided by these schools is invaluable. The Landing School is a community college in Arundel, Maine, that offers four one-year diploma programs in wooden boatbuilding, composite boatbuilding, yacht design and marine systems technol- ogy. Students can also choose to earn an associate's degree in marine industry technology, which requires taking any of the two programs offered by the school at 15 semester credits in general education. "Our students go to school Monday through Friday from 7:30 in the morning until 4:30 in the afternoon, with an hour for lunch," said Barry Acker, director of development/industry relations at The Land- ing School. "It's absolutely a full-time job for them, and they're not only learning the hands-on piece of building boats – they're learning the theoretical piece of it as well." The Landing School facilitates students' entry into the workforce by helping them create a career profi le identifying what the student wants to do, where they want to go geographically, what companies interest them and more. Students have access to an employer resource guide, » CASE STUDY #2 » CASE STUDY #3 their high school, and you're just connecting with them there, you're giving them a stipend or an incentive that will help keep them coming as well as engaging in fun activities and they're learning and they don't even realize it," she said. "That improves your outcomes as well." RIMTA is also working with the Rhode Is- land Department of Education to articulate its pre-apprenticeship training program into existing high school programs, so that young people in the area can graduate high school with creden- tials in the marine industry, while also exposing them to the industry, its career pathways and skill sets, and cultivating them from a younger age. While marine trades associations are able to provide signifi cant exposure and educational opportunities to young people, the involvement of employers and industry stakeholders is what helps propel these programs to success. "Without the communication piece and will- ingness to do their part of training – training their incumbent workforce, but also doing things like helping with training the pre-apprenticeship stu- dents, posting job shadows or fi eld trips coming into high schools are doing speaking presenta- tions – I think for them to step up and do their part is important," said Jen Huber, vice president of operations at RIMTA. Mackie suggests hosting tours at your busi- ness for local students, particularly those already attending the training programs at associations, to help make the industry tangible and acces- sible. This also helps associations expose kids to the industry in a way that is cost effective. "They need to see it, smell it, feel it," she said. "And I think that it's one thing to say that, but to be able to actually see the people doing the jobs and running the travel lift, I mean the jaws just drop when you bring a group of 20 kids to New- port Shipyard and there's a … travel lift there with a superyacht on it and it's moving from one end of the shipyard to the other, and it might be Oprah Winfrey's boat. "We are big on that, but again that takes re- sources. It takes materials. It takes tool," Mackie added. "And there's no need for all of those tools to be purchased over and over again when you can just use them for a day at a boatyard. And so if a boatyard hosts that, it's huge and money- saving, but it's also extremely effective." (You can read more about companies who have successfully hosted high school students on page 26.) As we continue to reach out to and commu- nicate with students, the message is key; while the industry seems in a constant battle with the push for students to take a university track, it is a mistake to set up a marine industry career as an "alternative" to college. "We stopped right away using that old line of 'Not everybody should go to college,' because that's not what this is about," said Susan Zellers, executive director of the Ma- rine Trades Association of Maryland. "This is about rebranding the trades to be great careers for people. They are the careers that feed a family forever and build amazing confi dence. When a young person knows how something works and how it gets put back together, it's amazing at how confi dent they become, and that carries them to whatever they decide they want to be." The Impact Institute in Indiana offers two-year high school vocational pro- gramming in marine mechanics.