MAKE THE CUT: Students at the Community College of Rhode Island’s Westerly Education Center work on splicing cables. PBN PHOTO/ELIZABETH GRAHAM
PBN 2023 Manufacturing Awards
EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT AND PRODUCTIVITY: Community College of Rhode Island
COMMUNITY COLLEGE OF RHODE ISLAND sees workforce development as a central part of its mission.
Jennie Johnson, CCRI’s vice president for workforce partnerships, said workforce development for the college is a two-fold endeavor. First, CCRI seeks to provide Rhode Islanders of all ages with opportunities that lead to family-sustaining careers. Second, CCRI seeks to help Rhode Island develop a statewide workforce that can meet its needs now and in the future.
Johnson said Rhode Island companies have come to CCRI “in droves” to meet their staffing needs. “All of our programs are based on the needs of our employer partners,” she said. “They tell us what they need and we try to develop customized plans for them.”
That could include everything from addressing healthcare staffing shortages due to post-COVID-19 burnout to preparing Rhode Island’s construction industry for new opportunities in the offshore wind industry.
One of CCRI’s most ambitious partnerships is with submarine manufacturer General Dynamics Electric Boat in North Kingstown and Groton, Connecticut. The company is in the process of building the new Virginia class of submarines, whose capabilities will include coastal operations, while replacing the older Ohio class of Columbia-class ballistic missile ships.
Meanwhile, Electric Boat’s highly skilled workforce isn’t getting any younger. The company is therefore looking for employees.
Cody Fino, executive director of workforce partnerships at CCRI, said Electric Boat approached CCRI about workforce training in 2015-16. Since then, CCRI has trained a total of approximately 4,000 Electric Boat employees.
The numbers have increased every year since 2017. CCRI will hire between 1,250 and 1,300 new employees for Electric Boat this year, and Fino said that number should remain consistent over the next few years.
CCRI has its own training facility in Westerly that serves new employees for North Kingstown and Groton. The center has about a dozen classrooms and even a scaled-down version of a submarine hull for students to work on. The instructors are mostly retired Electric Boat employees who now work for CCRI.
“They have the passion, they have the skills. They want to do something positive and pass on their skills and knowledge to the next generation,” Fino said.
One of CCRI’s missions is to turn the retired workers who have been building submarines for 30 or 40 years into teachers. In return, CCRI offers “Train the Trainers” sessions to ensure its Westerly teachers are ready to teach.
Teaching is also a skill, Fino said, and some understand it more easily than others. Therefore, CCRI could assign a new faculty member to one of its established staff members as a teaching assistant until the faculty member is ready to teach independently.
The Electric Boat trainees are CCRI students, Johnson said, although they are not enrolled in the academic departments and do not receive an associate degree.
Johnson said CCRI is working to connect its academic and workforce development departments.
“Some jobs don’t require a degree, others do. “Why shouldn’t a young person be able to get a good job and at the same time get a degree that will give them more opportunities in the future?” she said.
Safety is a primary concern at Electric Boat, not just for the new employees, but for everyone. CCRI worked with more than 400 electric boat managers to provide Maritime Occupational Safety and Health Administration training that included everyone from senior management to entry-level supervisors.
Jessica Key, workforce development manager for Electric Boat, said the submarine manufacturer works with several educational institutions in the region and CCRI has been particularly effective. Key said Electric Boat expects to hire about 5,000 workers each year for the next three to five years, and CCRI will “absolutely” help meet that need.
In addition to Electric Boat, there is a long list of Rhode Island companies that partner with CCRI to train employees and increase productivity, including Pfizer Inc., Amgen Rhode Island, Eaton Corp., Bradford Soap Works Inc. and many more .
Would you like to share this story? Click here to purchase a link that will allow anyone to read it on any device, whether they are a subscriber or not.
Comments are closed.