A little more than three years ago, boatyards like the Hinckley Company in Trenton were searching as far away as Florida to find boat builders with the kind of skills needed to turn out their world renowned yachts.

“We've always had difficulty in the past finding enough good people that are at good skill levels,” says Phil Bennett.

Hinckley vice-president of sales Phil Bennett says what’s changed is that boatbuilding schools such as The Landing School in Arundel, Husson University and others are quickly raising skill levels in an industry where knowledge was traditionally handed down from one worker to another.

“'Cause even though somebody may be a good woodworker, they sometimes have to raise the bar a little bit to their surprise and that's when they come to work on one of our boats because there aren't a whole lot of right angles on a boat; they have to develop a level of skill of fit and finish that really aren't used in many other places in society," says Bennett.

Image: Phil Bennett of Hinckley Yachts (click to enlarge)

“We're sending them out to the marine workforce with sometimes more knowledge than some of the builders who have been doing this for 20 or 30 years,” says Nicole Jacques.

Landing School marketing director Nicole Jacques says that until recently, attending the school was beyond the reach of many of the students who are now there -- then came more than $100,000 dollars that was pumped into the school's scholarship program. Jacques says the money was obtained through a $15 million dollars grant from the U.S. Department of Labor under the Workforce Innovation Regional Economic Development program -- otherwise known as WIRED.

“Through the WIRED grant we were able to bring some students in who otherwise wouldn't have been able to afford to come to the Landing School, so there were a lot of people from parts of Maine who probably thought they were going to be living on on a potato farm for their entire lives and always loved boats and because of the WIRED grant, they were able to attend the Landing School and now they're working for boatyards doing what they love,” says Jacques.

Image: Nicole Jaques of the Landing School (click to enlarge)

Inside the classroom at the Landing School, Scott Lambert is instructing a diverse group of students on the stresses that a boat's hull must tolerate when it's under power. While many of the 85 students at the Landing School appear to be recent high school graduates, others have already had experience in the work force.

“Never in the state before have we had such a large effort in which industry was front and center,” says Christina Sklarz-Libby

As the WIRED grant enters its third and final year, state program director Christina Sklarz-Libby points to new alliances created by the WIRED grant which went to only 13 regions in a dozen states. Sklarz-Libby says the funding has helped to create jobs, strengthen the state's economy and ensure that Maine maintains its competitive edge in the boatbuilding, composite and marine sectors. She says it’s also helped boatyard operators understand that they cannot isolate themselves from the rest of the world.

“That they are not separate and apart if they do wish to compete, it is on a global scale; that they do need to look at technology as well and that technology can be embedded in the classic lines of a lot of the beautiful boats we build, but there is a technology to it as well,” says Sklarz-Libby.

At the Maine Marine Trades Association, executive director Susan Swanton SAYS boat builders will now be better equipped to face the changing economic tides that control supply and demand.

“And so they are thinking outside their own little boxes more and they are willing to talk more about 'well, alright we've been dealt a nasty blow, what do we do to get around this? What do we do to make ourselves stronger so that the next time it happens -- because there's always a next time -- how do we deal with it better?’ ” says Swanton.

In the next segment of MPBN's series, we'll look at the changes the recent economic slowdown has had on lobster boatbuilding industry.