The company has tried a few things in order to get good workers. Last year when they were right desperate for workers, they hired many people that may not have had much boatbuilding experience, but had a good attitude. By working with the state, the state paid part of the wages while they learned the boatbuilding skills. That worked out pretty well as a lot of these learned a lot in the year long program
Now they are trying something else...well at least the owner is. Technically the company has nothing to do with this, but the owner has bought a local college campus and has turned it into a Boatbuilding Technical Center. It has not started up yet, but he is in hopes that the training it provides will fill the needs of the yacht building places here on the mid-coast. You see its not just our company that is hurting. The yacht building industry is just hoping right now,and there are a lot of yacht makers here. (Big yachts, small yachts,and those in between).
Carpentry that involves 5 axis curves, carving, furniture design is very difficult and time consuming to learn, but so are some other trades. One trade that is really hurting is marine electronics. The last boat we built had every conceivable electronic device on it that is possible. Just look at the picture of the helm that I posted,and you can see its state of the art. The problem is most of the marine electronics workers never dealt with this stuff. I mean who has. The owner is hoping that by starting this school he can get employees of this caliber...again not just for us, but for the yachting industry in Maine.
Myself, I think this is commendable.This is a lot of money he is personally investing. Granted he's quite young, and the employees he trains and retains now will be around when he's ready to retire, but its a huge investment in people. It may not be the only answer to the shortage of quality workers granted, but he's definately banking on it being a big help.
Sounds to me like the company's owner is on the right track, or even tracks
It may take a while to really bear fruit, but these are exactly the sorts of things they need to do to ensure a surplus of workers with the skills they want. Here we are talking about apprenticeship programs, and this guy basically is starting a technical school!