EB hiring surge on at Quonset

General Dynamics Electric Boat has hired more than 720 employees so far this year at its Quonset Point facility in North Kingstown and is looking to add hundreds more in the next few months.
The hiring push is part of previously announced expansion plans that could eventually nearly double the current 3,300 Rhode Island workers.
“We’re looking to hire 300 to 400 more,” said Jason Vlaun, Electric Boat’s manager of human resources at Quonset Point. “The bulk of the people will be coming in this month and next month, with a little bit of hiring to be done throughout the rest of the year.”
Electric Boat started the year with about 2,700 employees at the Rhode Island location. After the usual attrition, Electric Boat expects to end the year with about 3,500 employees, said Vlaun.
“We’ve been hiring continuously since 2010, and 2014 has been our largest year for hiring in the last few years,” said Vlaun. “This is probably the biggest hiring we’ve done in over 20 years.”
The ramping up in staffing reflects Electric Boat’s continuing government contracts for work on submarines.
“I think this is pretty much the last push to bring our staffing level up to support our work on two Virginia-class subs per year, and some other projects,” said Vlaun.
The future workload got a major boost when the U.S. Navy ordered the largest number of boats ever in a single contract in April. Electric Boat, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of General Dynamics, was awarded a $17.6 billion contract for the construction of 10 additional Virginia-class submarines, at two ships per year over a five-year period.
Electric Boat also has other contracts spurring the ramp-up in hiring, including work on two training ships being replaced and in the longer term, construction of modules for the Ohio Replacement Program, to replace the aging fleet of Ohio-class submarines, which launch Trident missiles. The last of what’s called the Trident subs was delivered in 1997.
After a leveling off at the end of this year, followed by six or seven years of about 250 hires annually to make up for attrition, Electric Boat plans to again ramp up hiring for the next phase of work for the Ohio Replacement Program, eventually reaching about 6,000 employees, similar to the facility’s peak employment several decades ago, said Vlaun.
The new jobs at Electric Boat’s Quonset facility are primarily in the skilled trades, including entry-level positions. “There is a skills gap, so finding skilled folks within a 75-mile radius of Quonset has been very challenging, but there have been some great initiatives in Rhode Island,” said Vlaun.
“We’ve been working closely with the R.I. Department of Labor and Training, working with folks who are unemployed and are skilled or semi-skilled, getting them through pre-employment testing, and then helping them get better suited for positions at Electric Boat,” he said.
“We’ve been referring people to the SAMI program,” said Vlaun.
SAMI is the Shipbuilding/Marine Trades and Advanced Manufacturing Institute at New England Institute of Technology, established with a three-year, $2.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor awarded in early 2013, and also funded by $440,000 in grants from the Governor’s Workforce Board and $50,000 from the Rhode Island Foundation. The program trains welders and machinists.
Warwick’s Donnie Daniel is a graduate of the SAMI welding program and one of Electric Boat’s new hires.
“I was unemployed and happened to go into the NetworkRI office, and they said I’d be a great candidate for the SAMI program,” said Daniel, who was working in heating and air conditioning until he became unemployed in March. He completed the SAMI program and earned his certification in basic welding in July.
“I’m 46 years old, and I’m going to be starting a new life and a new career at Electric Boat,” said Daniel, who will begin his new job on Aug. 27.
Daniel is from Ohio and worked in the automobile industry for 13 years, until the General Motors plant he worked in shut down and what he thought was a lifelong career ended.
Daniel worked as a corrections officer at an Ohio penitentiary for a few years, but the work wasn’t for him.
“I’m 6-foot-2 and 220 lbs. and people said I’d make a great corrections officer, but that was such a rough environment, mentally, that I burned out in a few years,” said Daniel.
He trained in heating and air conditioning in Ohio, then moved to Rhode Island because his fiancé, who is also from Ohio, had settled in the Ocean State. When he became unemployed, his goal was to find another stable career in Rhode Island.
“I looked into Electric Boat, and I liked the company, the pay, the benefits and the security,” said Daniel.
“I found out I love welding, so now I have one of those careers where you love your work, so you feel like you never work a day in your life,” he said.
“It’s a great feeling to see that now I have a future, and I can be comfortable, not just financially, but also physically and emotionally,” said Daniel. In addition to welders, Electric Boat’s demand for workers in the skilled trades includes shipfitters, pipefitters, inside and outside machinists, electricians, painters and sheet-metal workers, said Vlaun.
“Some of these work in the manufacturing and some work on the waterfront in installation,” he said.
The hiring surge at Electric Boat is good news for Rhode Islanders, who are about 85 percent of the new hires, with about 10 percent from Connecticut and others from Massachusetts, said Vlaun.
“We also hope the SAMI program will get more funding, so we can expand it to other trades like pipefitting, sheet metal, electrical and painting,” he said.
“The SAMI program at New England Institute of Technology is attempting to maximize its capacity in order to meet the employment needs of Electric Boat,” said Steven H. Kitchin, NEIT vice president for corporate education and training.
For those completing the SAMI program, the hiring rate is 90 percent, he said.
Electric Boat collaborates with several programs and organizations, including the Community College of Rhode Island, to build up the pipeline of skilled workers.
“We want to build multiple feeders for the pipeline for these positions,” said Vlaun.
Basic requirements for employment at Electric Boat filter out some applicants.
Employees have to be 18 years old, and a U.S. citizen, pass a physical, apply for U.S. Department of Defense clearance, which includes a criminal background check, and pass a hair-follicle drug test.
“There’s been a pretty high failure rate with the drug test,” said Vlaun. The hair-follicle test can go back nine months to test for five drugs. Even with marijuana for medicinal purposes, it still comes down to impairment.”
Feeder pipelines proving successful for Electric Boat jobs include veterans and youth organizations. Twelve-week internships provide time to see if it’s a good match and some of those interns have been hired full time, said Vlaun.
“We kicked off a new program this summer, a school-to-career program with local career and technical schools, for students who are 16 and 17, before their senior year of high school,” said Vlaun.
“They get experience in electrical and pipefitting, and if they like it and do well, they go back to school and finish their senior year and after they turn 18, they can come work for us.” •

No posts to display