Facing worker shortage, maritime industry reaches out to youth, retirees

The industry has been facing a shortfall and an aging workforce, but filling those jobs and encouraging young people to enter the industry is crucial to the nation’s operations and security, local leaders and educators said.

A big part of the problem is that many young people just don’t know about the opportunities in the maritime industry, said Col. Michael Fossum, chief operating officer and vice president at Texas A&M University at Galveston.

And once students know about the industry, they have to be willing to rise to the demands of professionalism and, for some positions, many weeks at sea, Fossum said.

“It’s not an 8-to-5 job,” Fossum said. “That kind of job’s not for everybody.”

Jobs in the maritime industry can include anything from working as an engineer on a ship to transportation.

In an address at a maritime education summit this spring, national Maritime Administrator Adm. Mark Buzby estimated a shortage of about 1,800 mariners required for the nation’s needs.

The maritime industry is a competitive field in which to recruit new employees, said Niels Aalund, senior vice president of maritime affairs for West Gulf Maritime Association.

Workers are definitely getting older with fewer younger people replacing them, but there’s also generally low unemployment in Texas, which makes recruiting challenging, Aalund said.

“A common concern throughout the industry is a trained and educated workforce,” Aalund said.

That’s the main concern of Larry Terrell, branch manager at Danner’s Inc.

The transportation company shuttles maritime workers from the ships to the airport, stores or other places they need to go while in port and transports parts and equipment to ships, Terrell said.

It’s a demanding job that’s sometimes hard to recruit for, Terrell said.

“Some days are just crazy,” Terrell said. “It’s around the clock. It just never stops.”

Terrell’s trying to recruit more workers by reaching out to retirees about working part-time, he said.

But there is an encouraging number of young people interested in maritime jobs once they’re introduced to the options, said Richard Chapa, director of career and technology education at the Texas City Independent School District Industrial Trades Center.

Opened in 2017, the center provides high school students classes in trades skills, such as construction and welding.

This year, the center is graduating 10 students involved in the maritime program, and the freshman class has 22 students taking maritime classes, Chapa said.

The industry has a lot of opportunities for young people and students are starting to recognize that, said Nate Swerdlin, maritime instructor at the center.

“Of my seniors, pretty much all of them are going to take a pathway in maritime,” Swerdlin said. “That wasn’t the case two years ago.”

But maritime jobs could pay someone out of high school about $43,000 annually, with opportunities to advance to jobs paying $65,000 to $75,000 in a few years, Swerdlin said.

The shortage in young people isn’t unique to the maritime industry, Chapa said. Years of pushing four-year college means many students don’t realize the opportunities in skilled labor, Chapa said.

But staffing the maritime industry is crucial, Fossum said.

“We depend on maritime for our global reach to the markets around the planet and without that access we are severely cut off, we’re crippled,” Fossum said.

Staffing the industry also is crucial to the nation’s security, he said.

Fossum hopes advances in technology will attract more young people to the field, he said.

But there’s still a lot of progress to make, Fossum said.

“Right now, there is absolutely a shortage of ship engineers in the field and we see that even on our campus,” Fossum said. “We can’t attract enough students into that program to meet the demand that’s out there.”