As the maritime transportation field continues to evolve, “the industry faces ongoing challenges, including rehabilitating an aging infrastructure, keeping pace with technology, adapting to broad organizational changes, and meeting the growing demands of a global economy amid enhanced national security threats,” according to the U.S. Maritime Administration.
Earlier this year, current administrator of the agency and retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral, Ann C. Phillips, spoke before a Congressional subcommittee regarding the challenge of recruiting and retaining a “diverse, multidisciplinary, and well-trained workforce.”
During her testimony, Phillips alluded to a study prepared by the Maritime Workforce Working Group and released by MarAd in 2017 which found that the U.S. “did not have enough mariners with unlimited tonnage credentials to sustain a full activation of the RRF [Ready Reserve Force] and our commercially operated vessels to meet sealift needs.”
In the six years since the study was released, she added. “globally standardized credentialing requirements have had an impact on the U.S. Merchant Marine. And of course, the maritime industry—like many other industries—has also been profoundly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Both of these developments have negatively impacted mariner retention.”
For future seafarers, she stated, a critical blend of educational goals including a blend of technical competencies, technological awareness, hands-on experience, learning and self-development skills, complexity and critical thinking, professionalism, teamwork, and ethical behavior “is critical to prepare and maintain a vibrant, energetic, and technologically-savvy maritime workforce.”
Mentoring from experience
Ronald J. McMiller Jr is a 28-year retired Chief Warrant Officer – Four Boatswain whose U.S. Navy career took him to more than 30 countries on a variety of naval and Military Sealift Command vessels. McMiller has enjoyed several occupations, but his favorite is the one he’s now doing full time – teaching and mentoring youth as Director of the Maritime Institute – East’s Boot Camp program in Norfolk, Va.
Another Boot Camp program is active at the Maritime Institute–West in San Diego.
The eight-week Boot Camp program is a fast track, daytime program geared toward bringing people with no previous experience into the maritime industry. The boot camp consists of four weeks of classroom instruction followed by up to four weeks in an internship with a maritime company.
Successful graduates of the program secure all the required U.S. Coast Guard documents needed to become an Ordinary Seaman, Wiper, or Steward that permit them to sail in the deck, engineering, and steward’s department aboard any U.S.-flag vessel.
“I know what it’s like to need direction,” said McMiller, alluding to his gang life as a youth on the streets of South Chicago and his enlistment in the Navy at age 19. “I understand that many of the kids we recruit are coming from low social and economic development areas and that so many of them are looking for a way out. I can relate to that because I was there myself.”
McMiller has built a reputation in the community as a trusted mentor to young people by crafting with a recruiting campaign that has attracted interest in the Boot Camp program from baggers at local grocery stores, Walmart stockers, Home Depot dock loaders, and students at local high schools.
“It’s gotten to the point where they tell their friends, they tell their friends, and then they come in,” he said. “Once I meet with a family and they get that sense of being comfortable with me, a lot of them come into the program.”
Has his campaign borne fruit? “Right now, I receive more than 100 calls a week and I probably have more than 50-plus applicants walking through the door trying to get into the program with many new students coming from out-of-state to sign on.”
Those who successfully passed the challenging course receive help in securing employment in the industry. Past graduates have secured positions with Campbell Transportation; Crowley; Moran Towing; the Military Sealift Command; NOAA; McAllister Towing; Seaward Marine; and American Cruise Lines, among others.
What’s the attraction? “ Several things,” said McMiller. “But what they’re most looking for is stability. Thay want to know that they can earn a very good income in an industry that is challenging and can take you to places around the world you’d never get the chance to see otherwise.”
Seeking stability
It was a family friend who sails as a merchant marine and some Google research that piqued Dynasty Stowe’s interest in going to sea.
Stowe had studied to become a licensed practical nurse, but was working at AT&T and considering her professional options. She knoew of the Boot Camp program, but the cost of the program caused her to hesitate to move forward. She was looking for something “that could earn me a good living and give me some stability,” she said.
“I gave Mr. Ron [McMiller] a call and he said I should come in and we could talk about it,” she said. Financial arrangements were worked out and following her May graduation from the program and after securing her papers, she interviewed for and received an offer from Moran Towing to work as a deckhand aboard one of the company’s Baltimore-based tugs.
“The classes at the Institute were great with a lot of time getting familiarized with engines, firefighting, CPR, and more. It gave me a lot more than I expected…it was like family,” she said.
“Dynasty is young and energetic,” says McMiller. “She tried the workforce, she tried school, all those avenues before she was introduced to our program. So far, she has met the challenge; she’s out there now and she’s enjoying it.”
A love of the sea
Born and raised on the island of Saipan, Mark Reyes grew up around boats, working with his fisherman father. “Saipan is not that big and island and it’s surrounded by water, It was natural for me to be drawn to the sea,” he said.
Reyes exercised his bent for mechanics by repairing car and boat engines, and, later, working for Seafix, a Saipan-based company that provides steel fabrication, machining, welding, and mechanical repairs for U.S naval and commercial vessels calling at the island.
“I started asking questions of the merchant mariners aboard the ships I was working on and decided that I needed to learn a lot more about how ships’ systems operate.”
A trip to the U.S. mainland, he felt, would advance his education as Saipan lacks any educational programs for those wanting to advance their maritime skills. “I pretty much sold everything back home, so I could come here and focus on learning.”
After a spell sailing for Matson Navigation, Reyes quest to add to his skill set brought him to the Maritime Institute-West in San Diego to study.
In October, 2021, he attended Standards of Training, Certification, and Watchkeeping courses at the school so he could apply for a job with a union.
Following completion of those courses, he was hired on at Marine Firemen’s Union and, the following year, he completed the Institute’s Firemen/Oiler/Watertender curriculum.
At the time of this writing, Reyes was enrolled in the Institute’s ‘Qualified Member of the Engine Department’ (QMED) Electrician/Refrigerating Engineer course where he has focused on learning the intricacies of shipboard electrical and refrigeration operations such as generator and distribution systems, electric motors, high voltage installations, and shipping container refrigeration.
“Coming in with a mechanical background and some experience, I’m finding the classes a little bit easier for me to understand.”
Slated for graduation in October, Reyes plans to return to his homeport of Honolulu “and wait for my credential to come through. Hopefully, then I’ll find a job as an electrician or junior engineer on a deep-water ship.”
His goal? “I come from a long line of people who’ve made their lives on the water and I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything else. Most important, though, I just want to be able to support my family and provide for the folks back in Saipan.”
Right, training on a simulator is a major education component.
Up from the mean streets
Born in Fresno, Ca., Anthony Wellington has survived what can only be called – in a word – a ‘hard’ time on the mean streets of San Diego.
“I was born poor and I don’t want to die poor,” he said. “When my time comes, I want to leave my son something of value. I don’t want him to live the life I did.”
Living in San Diego offered first-hand exposure to ships and the maritime sector that planted a vague interest in the industry in Wellington’s mind.
It was a telephone call he received from a cousin of his son’s mother that sparked his interest even further as he attended a truck driving course in Fresno.
“Her husband was working as a junior engineer and when she called, she went into detail about what he does and how much money he was making,” he said.
“At the time, we were poor and hurting for money, so when she told me all that it sparked interest, and I was still taking my truck driving class, but I kept it in the back of my mind.”
Discouraged by what he felt was the difficulty of jumping from one career to another and facing other challenges, he left Fresno and headed for six months to Texas, where he “kind of forgot about it. But then, she called me again, and reminded me, and from that point, I’ve gotten myself away from my environment, and have been able to really redirect myself.”
While in Texas, Wellington received his Transportation Worker Identification – TWIC – card. After a move back to Southern California, “everything fell into place and I got a job at a warehouse.”
A layoff severance package gave him the wherewithal to pay for his basic training at the Maritime Institute – West, where conversations with fellow students and staff, he said, “gave me some idea on what direction I should take, where I should be going, and what I should be doing next.”
Wellington found out about the VPDSD vessel security training class and worked at Door Dash to make the money to pay for that. He was then told that if he wanted to catch a ship a lot faster, he would have to get his government vessels papers, so he applied for and received his Merchant Mariner Credential in January 2022.
The following month, he was on a Matson Navigation containership out of San Francisco.
But, he said, while there were times he wanted to give it all up, there was a shipmate mentor and family ties that kept him from returning to his former lifestyle.
“When I was young, I began to get fascinated with the gang life,” said Wellington. “I started out here in San Diego in a gang and drug infested, violent social area. A lot of the kids I went to school with were the tough kids I always wanted to hang around with. So, I joined a gang.
“I’ve been shot; I’ve been stabbed; I’ve even been kidnapped, but still my dad and my grandmother never gave up on me,” he said.
“They’re pretty smart people, and they motivated me to go in the right direction. I’ve always had them in the back of my mind instilling positive ways and healthy ways of living, even though sometimes I rebelled against all of it. They’ve kept me grounded and I’ve learned the lesson that nothing good in life is ever going to come easy.”
In his own way – like his dad, his grandmother, and his shipmate – Wellington has become a mentor. “I’ve got a classmate who’s kind of struggling because he’s never sailed, and he’s paid for his training out of pocket, like me,” he said.
“He’s in Washington to see how the state ferry system there works and he’s really nervous about getting an engine room position.
“So I told him, ‘Don’t give up on yourself,’ and I pointed to my head and said, ‘It’s all up here. Just don’t give up on yourself. Trust me.’ I don’t ever give up. I just take breaks.”