Maine's 'new space’ industry members strategize how to meet workforce demand
Photo / Courtesy, Maine Space Conference
Last week, Maine Space Conference participants looked to the stars after a day learning about a diverse array of topics.
It will take a village to meet the workforce demand from manufacturers and other stakeholders in Maine’s “new space” industry.
The solutions starts with building strong partnerships among educational organizations at all levels, employers, state and federal government agencies, and more, said Jason Judd, executive director of Educate Maine, at last week’s Maine Space Conference.
Judd took part in a panel discussion called “Maine Space Corporation’s Workforce Roadmap: Goals and Strategies for Growing a Space Workforce.”
“The space economy is unknown to a majority of K-12 educators in Maine,” said Judd. “A lot don’t know about all of the industry projects that are happening.”
One of Educate Maine’s roles is to spread awareness and start offering professional development programs.
“Within manufacturing, we’ve done a lot of work in the past couple of years, and more going forward, to help students understand there’s a lot of opportunity in Maine,” he said.
The Maine Space Corp., created by the Legislature in 2022, is a quasi-governmental body working to position the state as a leader in the new space industry. The corporation is managing development and growth of a Maine Space Complex that includes three business units, geographically separate but sharing resources, and focusing on space data analytics, space R&D innovation and services for small launch vehicles.
A public campaign called Maine Space 2030 is designed to raise awareness of the economic potential of the new space economy for the Pine Tree State, whose flagship activity is the Maine Space Conference.
Draft plan
The Maine Space Corp.’s workforce development committee is working with the University of Maine System, the Maine Community College System, career an technical education schools, the K-12 system, businesses and business associations, and other organization to develop education, training and recruitment programs for a space workforce, said Ali Abedi, the associate vice president for research at the University of Maine and a member of a team involved in the design and implementation of Maine Space 2030.
The committee conducted a survey of new space assets and industry needs in collaboration with the Maine Space Grant Consortium, Maine Development Foundation, Educate Maine, the University of Maine System and the Maine Community College System.
A draft plan was presented to stakeholders during last week’s conference to collect feedback. It’s expected that a final plan will be sent to the Maine Space Corp. board of directors later this year for consideration.
The draft plan identifies Maine’s assets for advancing a new space industry:
- Geographic location for polar orbits
- Coastline for vertical launches
- Physical assets at Loring Commerce Centre, in Limestone, and at Brunswick Landing
- Small but growing supply chain
- Maine-based launch providers
- Education and public and private research and development assets
- Higher education institutions and high-tech industries
The draft also envisions outcomes that include:
- Encouraging former Mainers with science, technology, engineering and mathematics backgrounds to return.
- Retaining Maine’s students and immigrants with STEM degrees.
- Attracting highly skilled workers and their families from out of state.
- Encouraging startups and spurring development in technology sectors.
- Developing globally based applications for research, commercial and consumer uses.
- Facilitating STEM learning opportunities for Maine high school and higher education students.
- Promoting economic aspirations for all Mainers.
- Advancing Maine to a new competitive level in a fast-growing knowledge economy.
The committee looked at a variety of positions and types of skills — from data and artificial intelligence to manufacturing and sales — in space technologies such as earth observation and navigation, reusable rockets, satellite servicing, manufacturing, data analysis and communications networks.
Lack of awareness
At the moment, though, the study found there is “a pervasive lack of awareness" at the K-12, higher education and mid-career professional levels as well as in adjacent industries about the jobs and opportunities in the space industry, Abedi said.
Although there are many qualified graduates for entry-level jobs, finding experienced workers is significantly more challenging, he said. Experienced professionals are particularly challenging to find in software programming because of the high demand by other tech companies that can pay more premium salaries, he added.
Like other industries, Maine’s workforce is aging across the board and leaving the workforce at a higher rate than younger entrants are joining.
Space is research-and-development-intensive, but Maine’s R&D investment is lower than the national average he noted. There are few space education opportunities in higher education institutions in Maine, although there are several in the Northeast.
There is also a diversity issue in the space industry, Abedi added.
What’s needed?
A survey of advanced materials manufacturers — a sector integral to the new space industry — found they were interested in training opportunities for employee retention and attraction, said Andy Shoenberg, director of the Maine Composites Alliance’s composites engineering research laboratory.
Asked by the Maine Space Grant Consortium to do a gap analysis as it relates to workforce development and what’s needed in Maine, the alliance sent the survey to 44 companies and got 23 responses.
The key question centered on what the companies were interested in for workforce and how they would prefer training to be provided. For many, said Shoenberg, it would be challenging to send employees away for training because they were already short-staffed.
“We’re creating a series of seminar courses that we can get micro certifications for,” he said.
Judd noted that Educate Maine, Maine Development Foundation and others are working to bring together the education and business communities to discuss essential skills and programs to offer to young people and adults, even to transition people from one industry to another.
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Another important aspect of attracting qualified workers is the lack of housing for them to live in. We hear it across industries.
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