Hinckley Yachts, which has 240 employees in Maine, is adding to its staff. It has turned to the Landing School to train boatbuilders and, in some cases, retrain tradespeople whose skills might apply to boatbuilding.
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Hinckley Yachts counts among its customers David Rockefeller, Martha Stewart and Roger Penske.
The Southwest Harbor-based company builds just 30 to 40 yachts a year and, even with a starting price of around $1.5 million, there’s a waiting list for prospective boat buyers.
Yet for Hinckley, which has 240 employees in Maine and about 700 on the East Coast, expansion depends on finding skilled workers. It hopes to expand its Maine workforce by 10% to 15%, which would translate to some 25 to 35 employees.
“We need top carpenters, electricians and mechanics,” says Kirk Ritter, general manager of the Southwest Harbor Service Center. “Traditionally, we wanted to hire people with marine industry experience, but there just aren’t enough experienced people in those disciplines anymore.”
At the same time, like many other employers, its longtime employees are nearing retirement — so, with Hinckley already facing down the baby boomer cliff, it has turned to an innovative program to bring in more employees, turning to an Arundel boatbuilding school to train people with previous building experience how to build boats.
COVID effect
Like nearly every outdoor sport, boating saw a surge in popularity (and spending) during the height of the pandemic.
Hinckley says that the surge of new boat orders and boat owners led to a dramatic increase in demand for everything yacht harbors do, and an already tight labor market was squeezed even harder.
Hinckley has 190 employees at its Trenton manufacturing site and another 50 at the Southwest Harbor service center, which repairs and maintains boats. There are also operations in Portsmouth, R.I.; Stamford, Conn.; Annapolis and Easton, Md.; and Stuart, Fla.
Hinckley’s reputation helps attract prospective buyers and employees, says one recruiter.
“People want to work at winning companies that have demonstrated success, innovation and leadership. We know that Maine needs to attract highly skilled workers from out of state to meet the state’s growing demand for economic growth,” says Neal Harrell, a Newport, R.I.-based recruiter. “Hinckley is one of the handful of brands that help sell the state.”
‘Landing’ at the Landing School
To sweeten the incentives to join the company, the yacht builder this year launched the Hinckley Yachts Student Loan Assistance Program, It is working with the Landing School, which offered a good fit to train future Hinckley employees.
Hinckley already has a crew of six Landing School graduates, including engineer Matt Barton and the firm’s vice president of sales and new product development, Scott Bryant, both of whom have undergraduate degrees from other schools.
Hinckley offers an unusual work environment, Bryant tells Mainebiz.
“The brand allows for great detail and very specific, passion-filled craftsmanship,” Bryant says. At the same time, “our biggest asset is our people.”
He says the workforce includes carpenters and electricians with more than three decades of experience.
But with the baby boomers retiring and the already challenging labor shortage worsened by the pandemic, Hinckley started offering more of an incentive to workers wanting to enter the boatbuilding industry.
Workers who already have construction experience in carpentry, electrical work and mechanics are particularly well suited to making the transition to boatbuilding. The Landing School helps fill in the gaps to adapt the skills to boatbuilding, including scribing, epoxy work and fiberglass techniques.
Hinckley boats have a range of fine woodwork, sophisticated technology, digital operations and heating-and-cooling systems. Many of the boats have a waterjet system that eliminates the need for a propeller system.
Students going through the Landing School program can receive up to $437 a month toward their tuition expenses up to $5,250 a year. The offer also applies to newly hired Hinckley employees who have completed their schooling within the past 12 months, with the company contributing the funds toward school loan debt.
Sean Fawcett, who has been at the Landing School for nearly a decade and took over as executive director 18 months ago, says the loan program adds another dimension to a “decades-long partnership” with Hinckley.
“Over the years, numerous Landing School graduates have established significant and rewarding careers at Hinckley, and this recent collaboration through the HYSLAP program is a testament to the value that premier boatbuilding and service companies such as Hinckley place on effective and relevant education.”
Industry partnerships
The program with Hinckley is an example of what the Landing School has been working to cultivate, says Fawcett.
“This is one of our major partnerships. We’re working on others that will match up students, industry and the school,” Fawcett says.
Fawcett says it is exploring jobs that can be “sponsored” by manufacturers, something like a scholarship.
The Landing School offers concentrations in yacht design, wooden boat building, composite boat building and marine systems. It offers a one-year diploma in two academic semesters. Students can also receive an associates degree with a two-year program that includes independent study.
The Landing School was founded in 1978 in a dairy barn.
The campus is on the same grounds, but the buildings — which include large workshops, classroom space and administrative offices — have maxed out the available campus space.
Graduates have gotten hired by Maine boatbuilders, but also production companies like Bayliss Boatworks in Wanchese, N.C., and Catalina Yachts, which is based in Largo, Fla. A number have been hired by Maine Yacht Center in Portland and Portland Yacht Services. Graduates have worked on America’s Cup American Magic team.
“We’re often told by companies that they need more of our graduates,” says Fawcett. “We like to say, ‘We need more students.’”
For now, the Arundel school has about 65 to 70 students, though it has the capacity for 80 to 90. “We’re limited to 90 by the physical space,” says Fawcett.
At some point, Fawcett would like to grow the student body to as many as 150 students, but it would require an expansion of the current campus or a move to a larger footprint, where the school would have room to grow.
The school recently convened a planning committee to come up with a five-year growth plan.
