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30 | Boating Industry | April 2017 [ The Workforce Crisis ] www.BoatingIndustry.com which contains roughly 500 marine companies the school has had some kind of connection with over the year; that list is updated monthly. Similarly, Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College offers a three-semester marine repair program to educate students on repairing a va- riety of engines. As members of the American Boat & Yacht Council, the school teaches to ABYC standards. The school hosts career days for local high school students to tour the programs, as well as a shadow program where prospective students can spend a day at a specifi c program and work with current students to get a feel for what the training will look like and the possible workplace after graduation. "We found that we really need to connect with high schools and the high school counsel- ors themselves," said Todd Larson, marine repair instructor at WITC. "It is a very high-demand fi eld and students or prospective students are starting to see that and they're enrolling specifi - cally because it's easy to get a job and if they are technically profi cient when they leave, they will be successful." Larson believes marine trades programs like WITC ensure the student is well grounded in engine basics and how to troubleshoot properly. For this reason, he recommends dealers who are interested in home growing their techs consider a tuition reimbursement program and sending those employees to a marine trades school. "We have many instances where dealerships have found a yard person that has interest in the marine fi eld and has sent them to us for a year and a half, and then employed that person part time," said Larson. "To ensure the success of that home-grown tech, sending them to a technical college is a great way to actually speed up and make the technician more effi cient and more profi table in a shorter period of time." The Impact Institute in Indiana is a techni- cal high school with two-year vocational pro- gramming in 14 different careers, including marine mechanics. Upon graduation, students are prepared to either attend Marine Mechanics Institute in Orlando for post-secondary educa- tion or be streamlined into a dealership where the employer can provide additional training. The school offers paid internship programs for students, where they can go twice a week to a marina during the normal class period to get hands-on training experience. The school offers certifi cations through part- ners like Evinrude and Mercury in essentials and e-skills training. "Those will take you through electrical sys- tems and cooling systems, and then once they complete those [certifi cations], those go with the student to the dealership," said Ryan Ramsey, in- structor at Impact Institute. That support of industry partners is what makes it possible for schools like Impact Institute to grow. Donations from manufacturers make the dollars and cents of marine schools add up in a way that keeps programs open. In addition to support from those partners, Im- pact Institute has an advisory committee that helps guide its program. Involvement from employers provides schools an accurate picture of what a ca- reer in the marine industry looks like today. "When we make decisions about what we're going to do with this program and what is next, we lean pretty heavily on that advisory commit- tee to help give us guidance, " said Jim Walmsley, director at Impact Institute. "They don't make decisions for us per se, but they are the ones that are in the fi eld and they know what's current and they know what's going on." Larson added that time, resources and per- sonnel are lacking on the post-secondary level as well when it comes to promoting its programs beyond regional outreach. He would like to see the industry take up responsibility to promoting those careers nationally. "All of the schools are very regional and they can't reach all over the country to fi nd students, so I think it's important to convince the marine industry," he said, "that they need to go out and fi nd technicians or potential technicians at high schools [and] tech ed programs at high schools, court those technicians and get them enrolled at their local technical college or marine school, and then offer them a job after the fact." Walmsley added the industry should pro- mote its career options and post-secondary institutions to students who are preparing for graduation, in the same way colleges market to students. While students who have academic re- cords that are attractive to universities get letters and fl yers from those institutions, those students are rarely introduced to similar marketing from technical careers. MRAA offers a list of current marine trades schools and the association offers technical scholar- ships to marine trades students to continue training at the Marine Dealer Conference & Expo. That list can be found at www.mraaindustrydirectory.com/ Category/8677/1/Marine-Certifi cates-Degrees. For ideas on how to train new employees, see page 34. Students at The Landing School in Maine are in classes full time from Monday to Friday. ยป CASE STUDY #3: continued from previous page Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College ensures students are well grounded in engine basics and troubleshooting.