Shawn Avery - The Challenges, Opportunity and Progress of the Maritime Industry in Hampton Roads

For this episode, we talked with Sean Avery, who's president and CEO of the Hampton Roads Workforce Council. Listen closely as Sean talks about the challenges, the opportunities, and the progress that's being made in the region.

Visit www.maritimejobsva.com to discover what career and training opportunities are right for you in the Hampton Roads maritime industry. 

The Regional Maritime Training System (RMTS) was established using a $11 million (41%) Good Jobs Challenge Grant awarded by the Economic Development Administration. It is supported by $12.1 million (46%) provided through BlueForge Alliance in partnership with the U.S. Department of the Navy, $850,000 (3%) from the U.S. Department of Labor/ETA – Community Project Funding, and $3.5 million (10%) from non-federal sources.

Transcript

For this episode, we talked with Sean Avery, who's president and CEO of the Hampton Roads Workforce Council. Listen closely as Sean talks about the challenges, the opportunities, and the progress that's being made in the region.
Thanks for meeting with us today, and I've been looking forward to this episode
since about halfway through the season, and I thought it would be great to go over some of the ideas and thoughts we had from some of our guests to sit down and talk with you about. - That sounds great. - Since you and I started this path almost two years ago on this conversation to make this a possibility, I think we both felt that this was a great idea that if we could tell the stories, it was a good idea.
- I was saying great. - I was great stories. - Yeah, exactly. And I think we've been
able to discover some of those and give people the opportunity to talk about them.
And I feel like we've hit the mark that we wanted, which is to get the people
that have been successful in this industry to tell their story in a forum that they
don't normally get to talk about. I totally agree. I mean, it's one thing to have
me go out and present to individuals or present to schools, But I'm not in the
industry. I'm not the ones that's doing the job. Actually having people that are out
there that have lived this experience, telling other people about it, that's what
really makes the difference. 'Cause people can see themselves in those individuals and
maybe get a nugget that's gonna get them excited about the opportunities. And so I
remember when you came to me two years ago and you were like, hey, I think we
could do this. And I was like, yeah, that'll be fantastic. We've gotta figure out a
way of getting more people interested into this effort that we're putting together.
At that time, we wouldn't even call it the regional maritime training system. We
just had an idea of how we were going to try to get more people interested in
getting into the defense industrial base, building submarines, building our next
generation of workforce in the maritime industry. And what better way to do that but
have an individual talk about their experiences than those. "Almost everybody we talk
to expressed how challenging it can be. They're so proud of what they do and how
they do and they're proud of their workforce. But just by the nature of the work,
it's difficult to get that introduced to people who aren't already aware of it. - I
mean, absolutely. For me, my parents worked in the shipyard.
My grandfather worked in the shipyard. I grew up in this area. I knew about it.
But a lot of people don't. If you don't have a family member that's in this
industry, it may pass you by because some schools aren't even talking about it. I
mean, they're talking about technology. They're talking about healthcare, transportation
and stuff. They're not talking about shipbuilding and I don't know, we're about the
same age. And as we've grown up, they've taken some of that skilled trades out of
the high school and out of the career and technical education opportunities,
opportunities. So they don't get that opportunity anymore. So it's almost reeducating
individuals about all the opportunities that are available in the maritime industry.
That's probably been the most fun that we've had is talking to people and seeing
the senior people that own businesses or have been in the industry for a while tell
their story about the various pathways that they had to get there and then talking
most recently with some really junior trades people who just entered it and you feel
the energy across the entire spectrum. And we've been I think really careful to not
come across saying you don't need to go to college. A college isn't worth your time
and more and more I think when we talk to the junior trades people many of They
felt they simply weren't ready yet or didn't know what they wanted to do. They
didn't want to spend money that they didn't really have or go into debt. But now
that they've spent some time in the industry, they see the continuing education
opportunities. People who said, "I don't want to go to college," and I was saying,
"I can see myself going back to school and getting a four -year degree or more now
that I understand what that means to be an engineer or whatever the case may be.
- Yeah, at the Workforce Council, we don't really even talk about degrees anymore. We
talk about pathways and opportunities that you can learn a trade or learn some type
of skill, get a certification, go into the industry, work there for a little bit,
and then actually employers, a lot of employers will help pay for you to continue
your education. So you can go in, You can get a certification for welding, for
example. Go in, spend a couple months even learning that, learning a new trade,
then get a specialization in that welding degree. Move on up, then you may see,
hey, I am interested in engineering, or I'm interested in project management. There's
so many different pathways. It's very hard for us to say, okay, you can go to
point A to B, C, D, and E because it could be all over the place. And so that's
what we tell people to do, find your passion, get in there, learn about the
opportunities that are in that industry, find a mentor, find somebody that you kind
of respect, that's in there, that's doing this, talk to them about it, ask them how
they moved around and then start developing your own journey in this, in this
effort. I mean, it's so cool to be able to build something with your hands and
things like that and, you know, I sit behind a desk a lot. I don't get to do
that. I don't get to build stuff with my hands. There's a lot of people that just
like that, that like to be able to build things. And so get in there and try it
out first. Don't feel like you have to go to school and then go do it afterwards.
Get in there and try it. - One of the early episodes we did was with Shonda
Windham at Chesapeake Public Schools. And there's an example of a school district
that has kept their program going and never went away. and they continue to expand
it and one of the things we heard from them, I think is an opportunity for the
industry if we can figure out how to keep this collaboration and how to keep
growing together. One of the challenges they have is in finding enough qualified
instructors who can come back and teach the students and it's probably the same in
many other places because teaching is such a unique skill and just because You can
do a thing, doesn't mean you're necessarily good at teaching it either. Exactly.
Yeah, I mean, we're finding that across the board, I mean, in all kinds of
industries, because the job market is so tight right now, there's a few reasons, the
job market is so tight right now. So, most of the best instructors in the skilled
trades, for example, were in the skilled trades. And so, they can make so much more
money going to work. And so, being able to pay them with their worth or what they
can make in the industry, that's a tough bargain. So what we've been able to do
actually through the federal government is actually get some funding to offset that
difference between what they can make in industry and what they can make in the
workforce. And so that's one way we're doing it. It does take a little bit of a
special individual to be able to teach somebody. My wife's a teacher and man, she
comes home sometimes and you can tell she had a rough day. That taxing, you know,
working with individuals and making sure you're patient with them, that's tough. So
gotta make sure you find the right individual to do that. So, I mean, that's a big
thing. Helping to recruit the schools for teachers. One thing we're talking to
industry about is, hey, how about maybe releasing some of your employees half day so
they can go teach a course. Or schools partnering together, whereas one instructor
can teach at Portsmouth Public Schools in the morning and then the afternoon they
can teach at Chesapeake Public Schools. So really thinking are those creative ways
that we bring individuals in there. If it's a course where the instructor does not
have to be on site, maybe there's some virtual aspects where we can do where we
can spread it out among all of the school divisions. So I think we have to be
very creative nowadays when it comes to instructors for sure. Has industry been
receptive to some of those suggestions? I think they have. We work very close with
Newport New Shipbuilding. I think they're looking at some of that as well. I think
industry is starting to realize too that they have to be creative in helping the
education because, again, they're the ones that are going to need those individuals.
And so providing that release time, bringing instructors in so they can learn exactly
what they need on the job and then putting
and that it's easier for the bigger employers, you know, the one -man shop or the
four -person shop, very hard for them to let somebody go. But, you know, working
with Fairlead or working with New Perniers Shipbuilding or one of those bigger ones,
the colonists, they may be more inclined to be able to do that as well. >> That's
such a challenge. And you talked about how taxing mentally and physically being a
teacher is, I think one huge advantage here would be, it seems that the people that
want to pursue those programs are so enthusiastic about it that they're just more
willing students. So I don't think it was Teague's gonna get any worse because
they're just gonna be exhausted from trying to fill that thirst. Absolutely. I mean,
with this whole campaign that we're doing, our numbers are spiking up, so classes
aren't spiking up, so we're gonna need more instructors, and it's across the board.
So we've got 15 school divisions here. We have a regional, we have a couple
regional educational systems in the region. The community colleges is looking for
instructors. So we've got to figure this out. We've got to figure the instructor
piece out, or we're going to have classes that are full with no instructors and
we're having to cancel. And then right there, we've just kind of caused somebody to
lose their momentum and, you know, they had a drive to get into it. And then if
they they have to wait a month before the class. I mean, that's not something we
want to do. And so we're working very closely with our educational partners, with
industry, with recruitment opportunities to get them in there, to get them trained so
they can teach. Even there's been some legislation in the state where maybe an
instructor who may have required a master's degree doesn't need to do that anymore
and they could use just their experience. So there's all kinds of conversations going
on. One of the projects we're working on is working with the state where we did a
study as part of our Hampton Road Strong program where we were looking at how we
can increase instructors at the community colleges. So we did a whole study on wages
and what do we need to do to fill those wage gaps and things like that. So
there's all kinds of efforts going on to meet that need. There are so many training
facilities and programs that are ongoing right now. If there were an opportunity to
keep this program going to do another series of these episodes, that would be, I
think that would be a really interesting way to kind of get in and focus just on
those so people get an idea of what's happening in those and what the opportunities
are there. - Yeah, I'm gonna stay positive. When we do season two, over this next
year, we're gonna have a lot of new training facilities coming Virginia Peninsula
Community College is going to be opening up a new Maritime Training Facility. Paulty
Camp is going to be opening up a new facility out in Suffolk. Virginia Beach Public
Schools just expanded their welding programs, Tidewater Community College, Rappahanna
Community College. They're all in the process of building additional capacity at their
institutions. And so we want to get that word out because, you know, an individual
may be living in Portsmouth, but they don't know what's going on in some of those
other areas. And in this podcast and our marketing campaign that we're doing, we
want individuals to know that there are training facilities all over this region that
can meet their needs. They don't have to say, "Oh, I heard the program's over in
Portsmouth. "I live in Hampton. "I'm not gonna travel across that tunnel." Well,
guess what? There's a program right up the road from you that's doing the exact
same thing that can train you, get you into the industry at the exact same pace if
you were lived in Portsmouth. - The uniqueness of this region
creates some of the challenges. If somebody has to cross a bridge or a tunnel that
is a physical barrier that can be broached, but sometimes it's not realistic.
So being able to spread these out but have equal opportunities in the different
regions, nobody wants to get on the HRBT at 3 /3 in the afternoon if they don't
have to, not to make a class that starts it for. >> Yeah, and the good thing is
too, everybody thinks Newport New Shipbuilding is the only one that builds ships.
That's just not the case. We have suppliers, we have ship repair yards all
throughout this region. I mean, even in Virginia Beach, where they're not even on
the water other than the ocean, they're thinking, oh, there's no shipbuilding, ship
repair. I think they've got 50 -plus suppliers to the industry right there in the
region so you know that's just one city so there's training opportunities throughout
the region but there's also employment opportunities to support the submarine
industrial base the maritime industrial base and the defense industrial base throughout
the region. You mentioned legislation in there and in our conversation with some of
these small businesses they they they talk about some of the frustrating aspects of
being in business, and some of that is just the way it is. Often some of these
small businesses don't want anything else. They're not necessarily asking for more
money. They really don't have the time or the staff to apply for and then maintain
another program. In some cases, they're simply just asking for relief. So we talked
to one company in particular that talked about the challenges of getting their
employees to work. And they're willing to bring on some people who've had a
checkered background. Some of these small companies are having to hire a driver to
go and pick up their employees in order to get them to work until they can get
back on their feet. Because public transportation doesn't run the route, the hours
don't support it. And as we all know, if you can't get to the job, you can't do
the job. So it feels like there could be an opportunity there to take some of the
burden off. If a business is willing to hire somebody like that, is there an
opportunity? Are our legislators listening and saying we can find a way to take some
of that burden away from you? - I think they are. Like some of the funding that we
can use is for supportive services. And that's not just bus passes, covers,
lifts, which are more, you know, straight to the point. So there are some of those
opportunities. I wish I could say that the funding was more robust in those
programs. It's really not. I mean, most of our funding is focused on the training,
but I do know that there's conversations around that. It's how can we better get
individuals from point A to point B without having to go three or four different
bus stops to get to those efforts. I First I had the answer for that,
I will tell you, there's many conversations going on. That is definitely at the top
of the list, along with childcare is a big one that we're trying to figure out a
little bit better on as well. So definitely the support mechanisms for both the
employer and the individual is always something that we're trying to eliminate as a
hindrance to both training and employment. I mean, it's the same thing with training,
if somebody doesn't have somebody to watch their child, they're more than likely not
gonna go to a training program. So how can we eliminate that? Unfortunately, most of
the money we have supports the training side of it, but we are trying to figure
out, is there funding out there to support on, once they get on the job, maybe
there's some stipends that we can provide as their first six months on the job.
Provide a stipend for that. I think we're still kicking that wall down. Yes,
some of these businesses have even taken a step further. They're not asking for
that, because that almost sounds like, well, now you got to track it, you got to
report it, you got to, right? And that's, there's a burden to that. If they didn't
have to pay the employer side of the taxes, if they hire somebody to do those
things, that could make a difference. That could allow some of these businesses to
grow the next step and do things internally that would allow them to hire more,
more employees. It's a great point. I mean, that is kind of some conversations we
probably should be bringing it up.
to our region, and I'm sure all the guests that you've had on here have kind of,
in some way, understood or they've said that, you know, what they're doing is so
important to both our region, but our nation. What we need is the skilled workforce
here in our region to really meet the needs both now and in the future. We've got
to build these submarines. We've got to build these, repair these aircraft carriers.
We've got to make sure that we're putting out the workforce that's going to be
successful in this region because it's a national imperative that we get this right
and it's this is the time for Hampton roads right now we've got the water we've
got the assets in the region you're not going to build a new new port new
shipbuilding in Charleston it's just not going to happen we've got that asset here
let's support it let's get out there let's let's figure out a way to come in
there's so much training dollars in the system right now if you're interested in
this. This is your time. We'll pay for you to go to training. We'll help you get
a job. They're hiring immediately in these positions and so if anybody's watching
this and they're still on the fence, just give us a call because we'll be able to
help you get in there and get you off that fence. I think the number is somewhere
between 15 and 20 ,000 high school graduates each year and we're only going to get
so many of those directly into this. And Huntington Ingalls alone has said they need
how many employees in the next few years? - Well, just the maritime industrial base
in general is gonna need 40 ,000 individuals in Hampton Roads over the next 10
years. - Can we source that internally? Do we need to attract people from outside
the region? - It's all the above, absolutely it's all above. Just for example, you
said the individuals come out of the schools. That's a pipeline that we need to be
working on. So just this past fall, we talked to 3 ,000 young adults who were
coming out of the K -12 system, talked to them about the opportunities. That's
definitely a driver. We're doing stuff in the military now. So our transition service
members, and their families, and the veterans, trying to get them into the industry.
But yes, we do need to recruit individuals from outside the region. We need to get
individuals to come in The one thing that, it's one thing that I always hammer when
I go to the state is the Commonwealth of Virginia invests in recruiting businesses
to the Commonwealth to help grow those businesses. There is not a fund right now to
help attract individuals to the Commonwealth to come work here. That is something we
need to be working on. There are many areas where there are the same skill sets
that we have here and that we need here in this region and other parts of the
country. Let's figure out a way to go out there and show them the opportunities
that are available here and recruit those individuals. It won't be the only pipeline,
but it needs to be one of the pipelines that we have coming into the workforce.
Individual businesses do it, Newport New Shipbuilding does it, but they have the
funding to do that. But like that small company you talked about, they don't have
the resources to go out and try to find an individual to come here. So those are
some of the big ones that we're working on. I mean, we're even talking about
individuals who may have a second chance that are coming out of the justice system.
How can we get them into the workforce? Maybe they, you know, they committed a
crime earlier in their career, but they've made a change. How do we get them into
the workforce? And so it's all -- it's not one pipeline is going to do it.
We're even going down into North Carolina. We're going to basically a hundred mile
radius of Hampton Roads to start recruiting individuals, but that's just us in our
organization. To go bigger, we're gonna need additional funding to do that. - Yeah,
there's so many challenges in there and therefore so many opportunities. - Right.
- And you mentioned two of those groups, and I've got connections with both of them.
So as a veteran, certainly we know there's a big turnover of veterans every year
and if you're not from this region so many people think when their service is done
that they're gonna go back to either where they came from or a previous duty
station and it's it's difficult because we don't want to be competing with the
military for people but we do have to find a way to get that message in front of
servicemen saying look if this is if this is your last duty station and that's
totally your decision letting Getting them to know what those opportunities are
without making it look like we're trying to pull people out of the services here.
- So we have two Veterans Employment Center and that's their job, working on trying
to help the transition service members feel, figure out what they want to do next.
And their families, that's important to say. You probably know the numbers just as
best as anybody else. About 12 ,000 to 15 ,000 transition out each year. about a
third of them stay here regardless. They're gonna stay here. About a third of them
go home and we're not gonna change their mind. But there's about a third of them
that are kind of, they're trying to figure out their life and what they're gonna
do. And really what we're trying to do is show them all the options and ship
building, ship prepare is definitely one of those options. But we show all of the
options in the region. But with this regional maritime training system, we have put
a specific focus on the maritime industrial base and trying to get individuals to
stay. Just launched this fall, already had 350 people go through kind of the
program. We're trying to get it as part of Skill Bridge, so really promoting it as
an opportunity to kind of feel it out before you get out of the military. And
we're starting to get a lot of individuals interested. Maybe somebody who went
through four years of the military and they were a mechanic at the shipyard or at
one of the bases, they may be interested in going there, so let's show them the
opportunity or you may have an officer who's thinking about, "Okay, I'd like to get
in the supply chain management piece at the shipyard because that's a big part of
what we're doing, so let's figure out a way of getting them connected to those." So
it's really about informing them of the opportunities and showing them the pathways
and really connecting them directly to the and opportunities that are available.
- Reaching them early, before they make that decision to leave is so important.
Just like reaching high school students, right? If we try to reach them in their
senior year, it's probably too late. The sooner we can expose them to what the
opportunities are, what the work is, we have a better chance of hooking their
interest and keeping them moving. - High schools too, almost too late. We're actually
developing coloring books for elementary schools. We're in middle schools doing career
go -tech programs. We're getting them hands -on experience and trying to figure that
out. So, I mean, we're going down deep. I mean, hey, we may be in delivery units
soon at the hospitals starting to talk about shipbuilding, ship repair. You got to
get them on the path to understand the opportunities that are available here pretty
early because, You know, schools have changed. They're talking career exploration
activities pretty early. They want you by the time you get to ninth grade. You've
kind of started to go down your path. And so we got to get down there early.
- You feeling like we're making some inroads there? - I do. I feel like, again, we
have 15 different school divisions. Each of them have a different set of resources
that they can pull from. But I do think that they're all starting to get that. I
think our career and technical education instructors and the directors really kind of
see that, hey, Hampton Roads is a water community. I mean, that's our light blood.
It flows through everywhere. Let's figure out a way to get connected up. And I
think that the school boards and I think the elected officials are seeing that and
they drive some of that funding resources for the schools as well. And so, yeah, I
do. I think we're making some serious inroads. Again, 3 ,000 students went through
one of our programs just this past fall as part of World of Works in Chesapeake
and we had a World of Works in the maritime industry. So, yeah, I think we are
starting to make a difference. There are several other cities, New York, Baltimore,
Washington state that have maritime high schools. And my dream for this region,
I'm only qualified to be the janitor there, but I would love to see a Governor's
School for the Maritime Arts and Sciences here, where we attract the best and the
most interested kids into a program that becomes a model for the others,
and I don't think that detracts from any other district. It's just the most
dedicated kids,
at least for right now and it exposes them to it and it gives them the opportunity
to graduate high school and go right to work in the industry. - I don't think
that's a far off actual dream. Right down the road from where we are right this
second is the governor's school for the arts. I mean, I love the arts. I think
they're very important, but 40 ,000 job openings in the maritime. I think we can
justify having a governor's school for the time industry in this region and I think
school divisions are starting to have a city of Hampton, for example, Hampton City
Schools. They have a Maritime Academy already. Hampton High School is already
designated as their Maritime School for the city of Hampton though. But we need to
expand that. Newport News is starting to talk about that. We're talking with Isle of
Wight. We're talking with Virginia Beach. So, I mean, I think maybe that's one of
our down, I don't want to say downfall 'cause I'm like you, it's always an
opportunity. We've got 15 independent school divisions. How do we kind of bring them
together? Like the peninsula is done with New Horizons Regional Education Center,
those seven school divisions came together to develop that school. And we're talking
to New Horizons, okay, how can we develop some more maritime training at that
regional center? And then maybe Chesapeake, who's looking at,
you know, expanding their center, can become the center for Norfolk and Portsmouth,
and Virginia Beach could have one. I don't know if we'll ever get to one center
just because of the pure size of our region, but if we could get the three
different centers that are strategically located, that kind of serve as they work
together and kind of coordinate those efforts, I mean, I think that that's something
that's very doable. - As you said before, the region is, I mean, It's so vast and
it is spread out and there are so many different things within the industry that
happen in all or just some of those reasons that that opportunity to build those
different ones, it's a huge opportunity and if you do it up on the peninsula it
doesn't mean you can't replicate it down here and it won't detract from anything.
No, I mean and I think industry is even interested in supporting those efforts. I
know Newport New Shipbuilding, who we meet with regularly, has put that as one of
their agenda items, is how can we potentially get a governor's school for the
maritime industry? I mean, I think it's been called different things, but I actually
think that that is probably something that'll be doable here sooner than later, just
because it's just so important right now, and so the focus that's going on in the
defense industrial base, in the maritime industrial base. I would just encourage
anybody that's listening to this, and they probably got to this, maybe through this,
but visit maritimejobsva .com to learn all about what's going on. It'll also link you
directly to buildsubmarines .com, where there's even more information about this
industry opportunity. But this is the time, if you're interested in getting involved
in this region, or if you just wanna find out more, go to those websites because
there's just a ton of different information on there plus there's season one of the
podcast they can watch over and over and over and over They could say nice things
they can tell all their friends and they can subscribe exactly down. I mean Bob you
get paid by the views So let's get those numbers up, right? Absolutely Sean Your
name comes up over and over when we have this conversation about workforce in this
region Your organization has done an awful lot to bring this issue to light and to
keep moving it forward. I want to thank you for this opportunity and for talking to
us today. - Well, thank you very much. (dramatic music)