Raimondo touts Electric Boat partnership that will help students learn skills for marine industry jobs

GOV. GINA M. RAIMONDO said that through a partnership with General Dynamics Electric Boat, six career and technical schools will be able to offer training to prepare students for marine industry careers. / PBN FILE PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY
GOV. GINA M. RAIMONDO said that through a partnership with General Dynamics Electric Boat, six career and technical schools will be able to offer training to prepare students for marine industry careers. / PBN FILE PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY

PROVIDENCE – Six career and technical schools will be able to offer training to prepare students for marine industry careers through a partnership with General Dynamics Electric Boat, Gov. Gina M. Raimondo said Thursday.

Electric Boat has agreed to open ship-fitting, machining and manufacturing programs at six sites this fall – the Chariho, Coventry, Cranston and Warwick school districts, the Providence Career and Technical Academy and the William M. Davies Jr. Career and Technical High School. Total enrollment over the next two years is expected to be approximately 180 students.

It is anticipated that eventually about 350 students will graduate annually from career-technical programs in marine industries, as the programs expand to all career-technical centers and schools in Rhode Island.

“This initiative will lead students directly into careers in welding and electrical services, which will prepare them for jobs in ship-fitting and advanced marine manufacturing,” Raimondo said in a statement.

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She said that Electric Boat last year began working with the R.I. Department of Education and the R.I. Department of Labor and Training to address its employment needs.

Electric Boat, she said, will provide paid student internships.

Said Electric Boat President Jeffrey S. Geiger, “This program will benefit our company by providing us with the educated and motivated employees we will require in the coming years. They’ll have the skills and tools they’ll need to perform effectively at their jobs, as well as the means to take on future professional opportunities that offer greater challenges and rewards. We applaud Governor Raimondo, RIDE and the Department of Labor and Training for their foresight in establishing partnerships with businesses like Electric Boat, which will provide Rhode Island students with the opportunity to develop valuable job skills in high school. We’re excited by the promise this program holds for everyone involved, and we look forward to getting started.”

Coventry High School has had the highest enrollment in the state in career-technical welding programs, according to the governor’s office; its new advanced welding and ship-fitting program opens this fall with 30 enrolled students.

A sector partnership led by Electric Boat, called Pipelines to Manufacturing Careers in Ship Building, obtained $369,500 in funding through Real Jobs Rhode Island – the largest Real Jobs RI grant awarded. With the funding, Electric Boat and the DLT are embarking on one of the biggest planned hiring efforts in state history – more than 10,000 skilled maritime-manufacturing industry workers over the next decade.

According to Electric Boat spokesman Tim Boulay, students entering ninth grade this fall or in the fall of 2017 could be, upon graduation, among the 1,600 workers Electric Boat plans to hire in 2020 and 2021.
Electric Boat’s Quonset Point facility employs 3,500 workers, and the company expects to employ more than 5,500 workers by the end of the 2020s.
“Developing a reliable pipeline of skilled, trained workers for businesses like Electric Boat is one of our state’s priorities. This partnership, which will create a direct pathway from school to Electric Boat for hundreds of talented Rhode Islanders a year, and our Real Jobs RI partnership are concrete examples of the progress we’re making,” Scott Jensen, Department of Labor and Training director, said.

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