Earlier this summer, personnel from Alameda’s Bay Ship & Yacht, along with representatives from the College of Alameda, visited Vigor Industrial Shipyard in Seattle and a local community college. The South Seattle College, similar to the College of Alameda, is located near the shipyard and is a perfect place for future (and current) shipyard employees to learn.
Alameda’s Bay Ship & Yacht will partner with the College of Alameda to offer a pilot class for marine painting. Photo by Chris Rochette
By Chris Rochette
Published: November, 2014
Earlier this summer, personnel from Alameda’s Bay Ship & Yacht, along with representatives from the College of Alameda, visited Vigor Industrial Shipyard in Seattle and a local community college. The South Seattle College, similar to the College of Alameda, is located near the shipyard and is a perfect place for future (and current) shipyard employees to learn.
The goal of this trip was to see how a shipyard can work with an institution of higher learning to improve training. Both Vigor Shipyard and the South Seattle College were extremely accommodating and furnished a lot of useful information about their programs. After getting to know both the shipyard and the school, it was obvious that they have a very effective relationship. So effective, in fact, that the school actually hosts welder training within the shipyard. In the process, students not only learn the theory behind welding, but also have shipyard experts show them how what they are learning will be applied on the job.
Although the program at Vigor Shipyard has only been open for one year, it has already shown how effectively a school can work with a shipyard to provide good training. Also, this program in Seattle was modeled after a program at another shipyard in Portland. The program in Portland has been going on for nearly seven years and has also demonstrated what a successful relationship between a shipyard and school could look like.
After visiting the school and shipyard, Bay Ship was able to put together a good picture as to what they could do in collaboration with the College of Alameda, which is less than two miles down the road from the shipyard.
Over the next year, Bay Ship will be partnering with the College of Alameda to set up maritime- and shipyard-specific classes. The goal is to help improve the availability of shipyard training to both Bay Ship’s current and future employees. The program will start with a pilot class for marine painters and expand from there, using Bay Ship’s experience as a shipyard to provide practical and useful classes at the college.
