Center Stage: the New Face of Maritime Training

YEREL HABERLER Under blue skies, unseasonably warm temperatures and in front of a boisterous full-house crowd of family and well-wishers, the Massachusetts Maritime Academy on Saturday sent off its latest crop of 268 graduates into the workplace. The robust maritime employment environment that awaits them will not afford many the luxury of a prolonged celebration or vacation. Many were scheduled to ship out this week on their first seagoing assignments or report to shore side employment billets. Although this year?s class included just 108 licensed mariners ? or about 40 percent of total graduates ? and the smallest number of reserve armed forces commissions (9) in recent memory, those numbers do not begin to tell the full story of what is now happening on the Taylors Point campus.

 

The gathered throng was first treated to a colorful talk from famous sword fishing Captain Linda Greenlaw. Best known perhaps as the last person to have spoken to the crew of the ill-fated Andrea Gail of ?Perfect Storm? fame, the bestselling author?s salty descriptions of her life at sea and the journey that took her there provided the proper maritime accent to the day. Greenlaw, who also received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the Academy, was followed at the microphone by commencement speaker Senator John Kerry (D ? MA).

 

Kerry?s speech, which centered largely on the state of global commerce and U.S. politics, also went on just a bit longer than the restless crowd would have liked. He also admitted, tongue-in-cheek, that while hundreds of thousands of fans were at that very moment honoring the Stanley Cup Champion Bruins back in Boston, the graduates were stuck on the Cape, listening to him. When the laughter had died down, he deadpanned, ?I knew that would get a rise out of you.? Kerry nevertheless exhorted the soon-to-be-ex-cadets to look beyond the immediate good news of full employment and to ?worry about the world around you and then do something about it.?

 

Flanked by the Academy?s gleaming training ship on one side, a shiny stainless steel wind turbine on the other, amidst solar-powered lamp posts and in full view of fully certified ?green? dormitory facilities, the annual ceremony gives Academy President ADM Richard Gurnon the perfect backdrop to show off Massachusetts? most technologically advanced campus. The ongoing construction of the Academy?s ABS Information Commons, complete with a state-of-the-art full mission ship simulator, funded in part by a $3 million donation from the American Bureau of Shipping, provides ample proof that Gurnon has no intention of sitting back to allow anyone else to catch up. Scheduled for completion in September of this year, the added facilities augment an already impressive roster of simulator training equipment at the school, ensuring that the shrinking number of cadets who do decide to pursue a marine license in addition to their college degree, will also receive the best possible vocational training.

 

Now fully diversified into six undergraduate degree programs, MMA has necessarily evolved beyond its maritime roots. That transformation probably saved the school from closure or worse, being absorbed by another during the pronounced downturn in seagoing opportunities that defined the mid 1980?s and beyond.  That said, the challenge for maritime operators everywhere to recruit, train and then retain adequate numbers of seagoing maritime professionals continues today. That the U.S Maritime Administration has considerably tightened the availability of Student Incentive Payment (SIP) funds isn?t helping the situation. As a result, all but a handful of state academy cadets eschew the hassle of a reserve commission in the absence of tuition funds that would lessen the sting of the six-year commitment. Partly as a way to close the funding gap for qualified students, Gurnon is pushing for the start of NROTC training programs at the school. With Kerry?s help, they are closer than ever to achieving that goal.

 

Also attending the graduation ceremony and joining other honored guests on the platform was U.S. Maritime Administrator David Matsuda. His role in the festivities was appropriately limited to a brief (<3 minutes) congratulatory message to the MMA class of 2011. Ironically, Matsuda?s Marad parent (DOT) ? beyond the arguably stingy help afforded to those students who might contemplate a career at sea ? has probably done more in the past two years to handicap the domestic waterfront than anyone else. Even as Senator Kerry droned on about the merits of high speed rail during the actual commencement address, it might have been lost on most of those attending the ceremony that the Obama Administration?s planned $50+ billion infrastructure plan all but excludes the maritime component of the nation?s intermodal mix from the party. If Matsuda wasn?t squirming uncomfortably in his seat at that particular moment, then all hope for some love for the U.S. flag mariner from inside the Beltway is probably already lost.

 

With one of the lowest number of license-track students as a percentage of total graduates of any of the U.S. maritime academies, MMA is perhaps an unlikely candidate to be the model for maritime training here in the United States. And yet, the diversification of the curriculum has done nothing but elevate its stature as a learning institution that is well positioned to handle what is yet to come. The academy?s well-established wind turbine does more than provide green energy for the campus and sell back gobs of electricity back into the grid. It also provides the ideal training platform for the world?s rapidly burgeoning renewable wind energy industries, much of which will eventually wind up offshore as a maritime enterprise.  This, combined with the high-tech training maritime tools already in place, leaves no doubt that MMA remains firmly anchored in the water. The ebb and flow of license track students and/or reserve commission numbers can?t do anything to change that metric.

 

As a journalist, but also an alumnus of the Academy, covering the graduation every couple of years gives me the opportunity to reconnect with folks that I don?t get to see often enough. At the same time, the stark changes that have occurred over the years on the Buzzards Bay campus become all the more apparent to infrequent visitors ? like myself; for example. As a member of the nation?s last all-male maritime academy class (MMA 1980), I?m also quite aware that not everyone likes change. At Mass. Maritime, however, the changes have brought measurable physical improvements to the school, as well as to the product they send out into the workplace. That reality is as important now as it was 120 years ago when the school first opened its doors. With or without the high-profile graduation speeches and related pomp and circumstance on Saturday, that much was apparent on Saturday. ? MarPro.