The administration of Washington County Community College announced recently it was suspending its Eastport boatbuilding program. The suspension, said the college president, “is a positive step that will reinvigorate the program.”
Reinvigorating it would certainly be a good idea. Whether shutting down the program will accomplish that goal is unclear.
College officials cited declining enrollment for the suspension. What they seem to have ignored are the views of the marine industry, including the Maine Marine Trades Association (MMTA), which says there’s a severe shortage of qualified marine mechanics, and master boatbuilder Ralph Stanley, who believes there’s plenty of room for a program that teaches through apprenticeship. The problem doesn’t appear to be a shortage of jobs; it’s the way the program has been operated and marketed.
“It’s ironic,” says the executive director of the MMTA, “boatbuilding is one of the few industries in Maine that are growing and not dying. With this decision we’ve lost one of our major resources for this industry.”
When Washington County Community College’s president says he wants to “reinvigorate” the boatbuilding program, we hope he means that and isn’t merely making excuses for a short-sighted budgetary decision. With the possible exception of fishing, boatbuilding is the oldest skilled trade on the Maine coast. Scaling back or eliminating a state-sponsored boatbuilding program such as Eastport’s at a time when other industries are leaving the state – while boatbuilding is thriving – sends a strange message indeed.