Drafting a Career Ladder

[Barbara Jean Walsh]

Here is Stacey Palmer's suggestion: "I started a draft of a career ladder for the marine industry. I am looking for volunteers to give feedback and help improve upon it. I am wondering if others agree that there seems to be more 'lateral' direction vs. 'vertical' hierarchy in the marine trades. In some cases an employee can gain value by broadening their skill sets into related technical fields easier than they can move up in their own field. It would be great to get a more solid 'graphic image' of the technical careers as described on the MITEC website to distribute to educators, career centers, etc."

[Jay Jeffries]

Stacey,
I am interested in reviewing your draft career ladder and would be willing to provide feedback. Thanks!
Respectfully,
Jay K. Jeffries
Atlantic Undersea Testing & Evaluation Center (AUTEC)
Andros Is., Bahamas

[Richard A. Difede]

Hi.Rich Difede here from Gold Coast Yachts in St. Croix. Thanks Stacy. Great topic. Our current career ladder is being revisited so the discussion is timely. Attached is what we're using to train newbie's.See attached. We now want to complete Craftsman II then create the ladders to Craftsman III ( master composite shipwright) and then mechanical, electrical, plumbing etc starting from basic to master.

[Stacey Palmer]

Wow! I have had a bunch of email responses about a career ladder and BJ had a great suggestion to move the discussion over to this site. I am thrilled to be getting interesting feedback on this project I started working on last fall. It is very interesting to see the approach that Gold Coast Yachts has taken with a pathway within their company. Having a similar, but customized outline is ideal for any growing company. What I am looking to create is an informative piece for the promotion of our industry to new workers. MITEC's website has a great list of careers and their descriptions, but how these jobs inter-connect would be a handy thing to be able to present. I will be happy to try to gather feedback and then incorporate ideas into a revised model. This is a great place to continue discussions - thanks to BJ getting us on board with this technology! I will still try to respond to all your great emails too.....as time allows. Here's the draft and keep up the good work everyone!

Cheers, Stacey

[Noel "Red" Griffiths-Seewerker]

I was not able to download the MarineCareerLadder-copy2... this is great stuff I like the xls from gold coast and now I have to go search thier opperation. Alot of our student compentancies are throughout the document.

[Jay Jeffries]

Stacey,
Please see the attached marked up Excel spreadsheet. I made a number of suggestions for additional fields to include that I have come across while tramping through the marine trades. Also one minor technical correction as noted by the strike through. All additions were made in a contrasting color. Hope this is of assistance.

Also found Rich's CDP very useful as a model for how to develop a clear cut career ladder for our mostly untrained indigenous employees in Public Works. Are there measurable objectives for each of the defined skills?
R/Jay
Atlantic Undersea Testing & Evaluation Center (AUTEC)
Andros Is., Bahamas

[Richard A. Difede]

HI Stacy,

Good morning,....what I provided is very focused on entry level boat building. The WIB and the Board of Career and Technical Education are also working on career pathways for the marine sector to establish a framework for counselors in K-12 with linkage to post secondary training.Thanks for getting the discussion jump started.

Rich

[Richard A. Difede]

Hi Everyone... see my list of Careers in the Marine Industry...a work in progress

[Richard A. Difede]

Hi everyone...fyi....see site careerclusters.org ...hmmm wouldn't it be great if we had this for training within industries of the marine sector.

Rich


www.careerclusters.org

[Barbara Jean Walsh]

I wonder if this topic would make a good presentation at IBEX? Anyone like to make a proposal?

[Stacey Palmer]

This topic did seem to catch a bunch of interest, so not a bad idea BJ. I am hoping to focus on this topic over the summer when the industry here in Maine is likely too busy to chat with me. I have compiled a bunch of excellent feedback from this discussion and will be working with some design & marketing folks this summer to give the career ladder info a more interesting look. Meanwhile, I have temporarily added some photos to the job descriptions on the MITEC website to hand out at several upcoming job fairs at high schools. I think the photos will capture a young person's eye more than a plain chart of text. The photos will hopefully lure them into reading about jobs that catch their eye first. FYI ......I am always looking for good photos of people working on boats to use in educational pieces if anyone wants to share.

As for IBEX, I would be happy to collaborate on a presentation or workshop if anyone wants to join me? We could talk about the creation of a industry wide career ladder piece, but have something that could be regionalized ( ie. Florida and the islands have jobs that we don't have up here in Maine so much). Are you looking for formal proposals at this point BJ or just topics?

Another career marketing piece we will be working on here in Maine is a video similar to the "Navigate Your Career" that Florida has done and also one that Ontario made. Again, it would be cool to have a generic industry-wide video that captures the big industry picture as well as other regional videos. Gary Jobson (Jobson Sailing) puts together some fabulous sailing and racing videos - maybe I could see if he would consider doing one on boat related careers. He did some stuff for Maine Built Boats recently too - which I think is on their website already.

Another FYI ....yes we still have some snow up here, but we'll be launching floats and boat soon I hope!

Stacey

[COMITT]

I will pass that along. We'll be having a MITEC teleconference tomorrow, and I would love to suggest "Career Ladder" as a topic. I also want to invite David Veech to do a seminar for us. And we are looking at Apprenticeships, Yacht-Design Training, and In-house training as topics. Probably should do one on Workforce Development, too.

[Stacey Palmer]

David Veech is a great idea. There has been a huge wave of companies (of all types and sizes) getting into LEAN training up here. I know after Feb. I got some inquiries about Maine's apprenticeship program so there seems to be a bunch of interest around that topic. Maine is actually working on a new & improved marine trade apprenticeship program because it was honestly a bit of a tough sell for us. We're excited about our new plan and it will be interesting to hear what other states are working on.