The following is a news release from the Southeast Maritime and Transportation (SMART) Center:
(VIRGINIA BEACH, Va.) — The SMART Center has released the newest installment in its "Make the SMART Choice" video series. The series is aimed at helping secondary and post-secondary STEM educators, faculty, administrators, career coaches and guidance counselors educate students about the great, well-paying and challenging STEM-related jobs in the maritime and transportation industry.
The video features Blake Smith and Colton Hendrick, both students in the A.A.S. maritime technologies degree program at San Jacinto College in Houston. Smith and Hendrick intern at Higman Marine, a leading provider of inland marine transportation services for bulk liquid petroleum and chemical cargoes. Both men are on a career pathway that will enable them to graduate with academic and industry credentials, ensuring that they can work as domestic mariners anywhere in the U.S. at a competitive salary and position.
"Our nation's maritime system includes an internal marine highway system of more than 29,000 nautical miles of rivers, bays, inland channels and coastal routes that provide a critical method of transportation for goods across the U.S.," says Barbara Murray, SMART Center PI and executive director. "Our partner, the U.S. Maritime Administration is working to develop and expand our nation's marine highway system to increase our nation's competitiveness, reduce freight shipping costs, reduce air emissions from overtaxes land-based transportation, and increase our nation's safety. In order to make that plan a reality we need a new generation of skilled, technical mariners to drive the vessels that use those waterways every day. Students like Blake Smith and Colton Hendrick will have good, stable, high-paying jobs by pursuing this industry's career pathway and we're working with high schools and community colleges across the southeast to see more students join them."
Watch the new "Make the SMART Choice" video and learn more about the maritime and transportation industry at www.maritime-technology.org.
