February 25, 2008
On-the-job training | From forestry to biotech, companies complain about a lack of qualified workers. Is Maine doing enough to train its workforce?
Last fall, Mainebiz hosted a symposium on pessimism in Maine's business community. We decided to follow up on some of the more compelling issues that came out of that afternoon event. This story is the second in our three-part series.
Part one: In the Feb. 11 issue, Mainebiz explored the myth and reality of the great Maine worker.
Part two: In this issue, Mainebiz looks at the intersection of education and the economy. As more industries complain about a dearth of skilled workers, we ask whether Maine is properly educating its workforce.
Part three: In the March 10 issue, we wrap up the series by looking at where the state's next crop of leaders will come from.
Dana Humphrey has only a few minutes to talk about a new academic program at the University of Maine in Orono before he has to rush out of his office and into a building across the way to teach one of its courses.
The new minor, "Engineering and leadership management," fires Humphrey up because it gives him one of the few opportunities he has as the College of Engineering dean to teach. And it is closely aligned with Humphrey's mission to match the needs of Maine's economy to the department's educational offerings.
"We're absolutely critical to the economy," he says, 10 minutes before class. "The University of Maine is the best engine for economic growth, and the engineering department is what provides the octane for that engine," he says, quoting Jack Cashman, special economic advisor to Gov. John Baldacci.
The department designed the new program after hearing from Maine engineering companies that while they find university graduates to be technically competent, they feel their young staffers need sharper leadership skills. "We're teaching about personality styles, motivation, communication skills, teamwork, decision-making skills," Humphrey says.
There is no doubt that Maine's public university and community college systems try to stay abreast of the state's economic shifts, and then mold their programs to match workforce needs. Advisory councils of people from many fields stay in touch with department heads at all the systems' campuses.
But schools are still falling short. Even though two-thirds of Maine graduates remain to take their first job here, representatives from the manufacturing, construction, biotech and forestry industries all regularly report a hardship in finding qualified hires.
Even Humphrey admits that his department, which supplies an engineering sector in Maine responsible for producing 70% of the state's exports, is not robust enough. Maine currently ranks 49th for per capita production of engineers in the nation. "The most common concern I hear from engineering and manufacturing firms is the limit on their growth if they can't get enough engineers," he says.
But to produce enough engineers for the state, Humphrey says the college, which offers 11 programs that graduate 140 students each year and cost $9 million annually, would have to double its size and budget.
Edna Mora Szymanski, University of Maine's provost, points out that a recent report by University of Maine economist Todd Gabe shows the university is injecting Maine's economy with a vital stream of human capital. Gabe released a report last fall claiming that each graduating class adds $515.5 million to Maine's economy over a lifetime. But Szymanski admits weaknesses, pointing, like Humphrey, to the inadequate number of engineering graduates. "The state doesn't have enough to invest the amount of money we need," she says.
John Fitzsimmons, president of the Maine Community College System, says community colleges are underserving the state, despite being singularly focused on supporting the economy. "We only offer programs that Maine's economy needs. We only care about serving Maine's economy," he says. He continues, "It's not finding students, we've got waiting lists. It's not professors. It's the state needing to fund community colleges so we can grow." The system's budget this fiscal year was about $115 million, of which $51.4 million was appropriated by the state Legislature.
Learning on the fly
When schools do not graduate enough of the skilled workers that companies need, they will at times offer their own training. Robin Wood, the human resources director at the Woolwich construction firm Reed & Reed, says she finds it difficult to find experienced craftspeople and is anticipating a tough year ahead as she hunts for 40 to 50 full-time workers. "The technical and trade schools are not turning out skilled carpenters or welders," she says.
Even though five of the community college system's seven campuses offer construction programs, and three offer welding programs, the problem, says system spokeswoman Helen Pelletier, is need. "Many of our programs are at capacity, and we have many more students interested in the programs than we have room for them," she says.
To counter the lack of workers, and also to pass on the knowledge of older employees, Reed & Reed has developed a mentoring program that for several weeks puts new hires under the watchful eye of an experienced worker. "We do a lot of on-the-job training and have developed the mentoring program," Wood says. "This is what people are having to do."
Schools are not entirely at fault for a worker shortage. Lisa Martin, executive director of the Manufacturers Association of Maine, says it's safe to say that at any given time manufacturers across the state are seeking to fill 1,200 job openings, based on a 2006 association survey of its members. But rather than blame schools, she says not enough students are attracted to the industry because of its bad press.
"If you think of manufacturing, people have a fairly negative image of it," she says. "Folks don't make the connection between high skills, high wages and excellent opportunities with manufacturing. The manufacturing sector today is incredibly high tech, and requires computer, math and engineering skills."
Ted Smith, marketing director of Hodgdon Yachts in East Boothbay, echoes Martin. Not enough students connect an education in manufacturing with decent-paying jobs in careers like boat building. Right now his company is searching for designers, joiners, composite boat builders, painters and finishers. "The crux of it is, as an industry, Maine boat builders are not doing a great job in explaining the opportunities for trades," he says.
Biotechnology companies in Maine also are hard-pressed to find educated workers, and say they'd be greatly helped if a graduate biotech program or medical school were to open here. Joseph Crabb, chief scientific officer of ImmuCell, a biotech company in Portland, says he has never, in his 20 years with the company, hired a Ph.D. candidate trained in Maine. No state school has a graduate-level program tailored to biotech, with classes in biotech regulation, product development or biotech business.
Crabb says that ImmuCell regularly hires lower-level students from universities and private colleges, but that the company has trouble finding Ph.D. scientists and engineers in the biotech area, and peopel with formal training in biotech manufacturing. "Those skills don't exist in Maine," she says.
To make biotech matters worse, the University of Southern Maine recently announced it might cut 26 undergraduate and graduate degree programs, including some in chemistry and biochemistry. The budget-challenged university says it is targeting programs graduating a low number of students.
To help meet the need for biotech workers, Southern Maine Community College in South Portland launched a biotech program in 2005, providing students with lab experience and basic knowledge for a two-year associate's degree. This is enough to get them a job at Idexx or another firm, or propel them onto a graduate program, according to program director Elizabeth Ehrenfeld.
Although some students leave Maine to attend graduate programs, Kelly Dailey, an SMCC biotech student who is working part-time at Idexx, says the college program got her hooked on biotech as a career path ˆ in Maine. She writes in an e-mail, "This is where I plan to spread my roots and raise a family. This is where I want to make my life. I currently work in the biotech industry and I am excited to continue my career here in Maine."
Indeed, Dailey sees lots of professional opportunities in the Portland area, which she says has a "happening" biotech industry.
Filling the void
Forestry, too, is troubled to find enough workers, especially truck drivers and skilled harvesting operators, according to Cameron Rust, head of human resources for J.D. Irving Woodlands in Fort Kent. And, as the workforce ages, forestry companies must scramble to fill yawning holes in their workforce. Katahdin Mills in Millinocket, for example, expects at least 200 positions to open up in the next five years as its workers retire, according to the Bangor Daily News. "It's a challenge," Rust says.
Terence Kelly, a spokesman for the University of Maine at Fort Kent, says the university next fall will begin offering a new accelerated program allowing students to earn an associate's degree in forestry and a bachelor's in business in four years. Jeff Dubis, an assistant professor of forestry, explains that "as the business of forestry gets more and more competitive and difficult, [companies] want to see students with business skills to back up their forestry skills."
UMFK also is launching a concentration next fall in winter sports management that will teach students how to manage small ski centers. Maine has about a dozen modestly sized Nordic and alpine centers, including five in Aroostook County, Dubis says.
While this program is geared to local needs, it is still producing students for a field in Maine with limited jobs. And Matt Jacobson, executive director of the nonprofit business attraction firm Maine & Co. in Portland, is critical of University of Southern Maine's recent decision to launch another sports management concentration for this very reason. The program, which is tied to a B.S. in business administration, exposes students to sports marketing, sports law, sports finance and accounting.
USM spokesman Robert Caswell says that minor league teams in Portland, like the Sea Dogs baseball club and the Pirates hockey team, need staff with backgrounds in the business of sports. But Jacobson points out, "There are not many businesses that can use that degree." He sees universities here as often catering more to students' desires than to the needs of the Maine economy.
Jacobson asks why Maine, for instance, does not offer four-year degrees in hotel management or culinary arts if tourism pulls in about $9 billion a year for the state. "Because we have so many people coming here, what would be a better training ground?" he asks. "Why don't we have a world-class training program?"
The Maine Community College System does offer associate's degrees in culinary arts at five campuses, along with one program in restaurant management and another in adventure recreation and tourism. Central Maine Community College has a business associate's degree in hospitality management, and SMCC also offers a degree in lodging and restaurant management.
But Fitzsimmons agrees the school should target tourism more. He also notes, however, that the industry is treated somewhat like a neglected stepchild in Maine. "We have a love-hate relationship with tourism," he says, noting that adding programs really comes down to finding more dollars. "What we're going to need over time is the state making investments to expand programs. It's only through state support we can expand." Twenty-five percent of the community college system's budget comes from tuition, he adds.
On the other hand, 43% of the University of Maine system's budget comes from tuition. In fiscal year 2008, its total budget was $488.7 million, with $183.2 million from the state's general fund appropriation.
Jacobson suggests a shift to this ratio. "Their customers, because that is where they get their revenues, are their students," he says. "I would like their customers to be Maine's economy, and we should fund them to that degree. Universities are a tremendous opportunity for growth."
Part one: In the Feb. 11 issue, Mainebiz explored the myth and reality of the great Maine worker.
Part two: In this issue, Mainebiz looks at the intersection of education and the economy. As more industries complain about a dearth of skilled workers, we ask whether Maine is properly educating its workforce.
Part three: In the March 10 issue, we wrap up the series by looking at where the state's next crop of leaders will come from.
Dana Humphrey has only a few minutes to talk about a new academic program at the University of Maine in Orono before he has to rush out of his office and into a building across the way to teach one of its courses.
The new minor, "Engineering and leadership management," fires Humphrey up because it gives him one of the few opportunities he has as the College of Engineering dean to teach. And it is closely aligned with Humphrey's mission to match the needs of Maine's economy to the department's educational offerings.
"We're absolutely critical to the economy," he says, 10 minutes before class. "The University of Maine is the best engine for economic growth, and the engineering department is what provides the octane for that engine," he says, quoting Jack Cashman, special economic advisor to Gov. John Baldacci.
The department designed the new program after hearing from Maine engineering companies that while they find university graduates to be technically competent, they feel their young staffers need sharper leadership skills. "We're teaching about personality styles, motivation, communication skills, teamwork, decision-making skills," Humphrey says.
There is no doubt that Maine's public university and community college systems try to stay abreast of the state's economic shifts, and then mold their programs to match workforce needs. Advisory councils of people from many fields stay in touch with department heads at all the systems' campuses.
But schools are still falling short. Even though two-thirds of Maine graduates remain to take their first job here, representatives from the manufacturing, construction, biotech and forestry industries all regularly report a hardship in finding qualified hires.
Even Humphrey admits that his department, which supplies an engineering sector in Maine responsible for producing 70% of the state's exports, is not robust enough. Maine currently ranks 49th for per capita production of engineers in the nation. "The most common concern I hear from engineering and manufacturing firms is the limit on their growth if they can't get enough engineers," he says.
But to produce enough engineers for the state, Humphrey says the college, which offers 11 programs that graduate 140 students each year and cost $9 million annually, would have to double its size and budget.
Edna Mora Szymanski, University of Maine's provost, points out that a recent report by University of Maine economist Todd Gabe shows the university is injecting Maine's economy with a vital stream of human capital. Gabe released a report last fall claiming that each graduating class adds $515.5 million to Maine's economy over a lifetime. But Szymanski admits weaknesses, pointing, like Humphrey, to the inadequate number of engineering graduates. "The state doesn't have enough to invest the amount of money we need," she says.
John Fitzsimmons, president of the Maine Community College System, says community colleges are underserving the state, despite being singularly focused on supporting the economy. "We only offer programs that Maine's economy needs. We only care about serving Maine's economy," he says. He continues, "It's not finding students, we've got waiting lists. It's not professors. It's the state needing to fund community colleges so we can grow." The system's budget this fiscal year was about $115 million, of which $51.4 million was appropriated by the state Legislature.
Learning on the fly
When schools do not graduate enough of the skilled workers that companies need, they will at times offer their own training. Robin Wood, the human resources director at the Woolwich construction firm Reed & Reed, says she finds it difficult to find experienced craftspeople and is anticipating a tough year ahead as she hunts for 40 to 50 full-time workers. "The technical and trade schools are not turning out skilled carpenters or welders," she says.
Even though five of the community college system's seven campuses offer construction programs, and three offer welding programs, the problem, says system spokeswoman Helen Pelletier, is need. "Many of our programs are at capacity, and we have many more students interested in the programs than we have room for them," she says.
To counter the lack of workers, and also to pass on the knowledge of older employees, Reed & Reed has developed a mentoring program that for several weeks puts new hires under the watchful eye of an experienced worker. "We do a lot of on-the-job training and have developed the mentoring program," Wood says. "This is what people are having to do."
Schools are not entirely at fault for a worker shortage. Lisa Martin, executive director of the Manufacturers Association of Maine, says it's safe to say that at any given time manufacturers across the state are seeking to fill 1,200 job openings, based on a 2006 association survey of its members. But rather than blame schools, she says not enough students are attracted to the industry because of its bad press.
"If you think of manufacturing, people have a fairly negative image of it," she says. "Folks don't make the connection between high skills, high wages and excellent opportunities with manufacturing. The manufacturing sector today is incredibly high tech, and requires computer, math and engineering skills."
Ted Smith, marketing director of Hodgdon Yachts in East Boothbay, echoes Martin. Not enough students connect an education in manufacturing with decent-paying jobs in careers like boat building. Right now his company is searching for designers, joiners, composite boat builders, painters and finishers. "The crux of it is, as an industry, Maine boat builders are not doing a great job in explaining the opportunities for trades," he says.
Biotechnology companies in Maine also are hard-pressed to find educated workers, and say they'd be greatly helped if a graduate biotech program or medical school were to open here. Joseph Crabb, chief scientific officer of ImmuCell, a biotech company in Portland, says he has never, in his 20 years with the company, hired a Ph.D. candidate trained in Maine. No state school has a graduate-level program tailored to biotech, with classes in biotech regulation, product development or biotech business.
Crabb says that ImmuCell regularly hires lower-level students from universities and private colleges, but that the company has trouble finding Ph.D. scientists and engineers in the biotech area, and peopel with formal training in biotech manufacturing. "Those skills don't exist in Maine," she says.
To make biotech matters worse, the University of Southern Maine recently announced it might cut 26 undergraduate and graduate degree programs, including some in chemistry and biochemistry. The budget-challenged university says it is targeting programs graduating a low number of students.
To help meet the need for biotech workers, Southern Maine Community College in South Portland launched a biotech program in 2005, providing students with lab experience and basic knowledge for a two-year associate's degree. This is enough to get them a job at Idexx or another firm, or propel them onto a graduate program, according to program director Elizabeth Ehrenfeld.
Although some students leave Maine to attend graduate programs, Kelly Dailey, an SMCC biotech student who is working part-time at Idexx, says the college program got her hooked on biotech as a career path ˆ in Maine. She writes in an e-mail, "This is where I plan to spread my roots and raise a family. This is where I want to make my life. I currently work in the biotech industry and I am excited to continue my career here in Maine."
Indeed, Dailey sees lots of professional opportunities in the Portland area, which she says has a "happening" biotech industry.
Filling the void
Forestry, too, is troubled to find enough workers, especially truck drivers and skilled harvesting operators, according to Cameron Rust, head of human resources for J.D. Irving Woodlands in Fort Kent. And, as the workforce ages, forestry companies must scramble to fill yawning holes in their workforce. Katahdin Mills in Millinocket, for example, expects at least 200 positions to open up in the next five years as its workers retire, according to the Bangor Daily News. "It's a challenge," Rust says.
Terence Kelly, a spokesman for the University of Maine at Fort Kent, says the university next fall will begin offering a new accelerated program allowing students to earn an associate's degree in forestry and a bachelor's in business in four years. Jeff Dubis, an assistant professor of forestry, explains that "as the business of forestry gets more and more competitive and difficult, [companies] want to see students with business skills to back up their forestry skills."
UMFK also is launching a concentration next fall in winter sports management that will teach students how to manage small ski centers. Maine has about a dozen modestly sized Nordic and alpine centers, including five in Aroostook County, Dubis says.
While this program is geared to local needs, it is still producing students for a field in Maine with limited jobs. And Matt Jacobson, executive director of the nonprofit business attraction firm Maine & Co. in Portland, is critical of University of Southern Maine's recent decision to launch another sports management concentration for this very reason. The program, which is tied to a B.S. in business administration, exposes students to sports marketing, sports law, sports finance and accounting.
USM spokesman Robert Caswell says that minor league teams in Portland, like the Sea Dogs baseball club and the Pirates hockey team, need staff with backgrounds in the business of sports. But Jacobson points out, "There are not many businesses that can use that degree." He sees universities here as often catering more to students' desires than to the needs of the Maine economy.
Jacobson asks why Maine, for instance, does not offer four-year degrees in hotel management or culinary arts if tourism pulls in about $9 billion a year for the state. "Because we have so many people coming here, what would be a better training ground?" he asks. "Why don't we have a world-class training program?"
The Maine Community College System does offer associate's degrees in culinary arts at five campuses, along with one program in restaurant management and another in adventure recreation and tourism. Central Maine Community College has a business associate's degree in hospitality management, and SMCC also offers a degree in lodging and restaurant management.
But Fitzsimmons agrees the school should target tourism more. He also notes, however, that the industry is treated somewhat like a neglected stepchild in Maine. "We have a love-hate relationship with tourism," he says, noting that adding programs really comes down to finding more dollars. "What we're going to need over time is the state making investments to expand programs. It's only through state support we can expand." Twenty-five percent of the community college system's budget comes from tuition, he adds.
On the other hand, 43% of the University of Maine system's budget comes from tuition. In fiscal year 2008, its total budget was $488.7 million, with $183.2 million from the state's general fund appropriation.
Jacobson suggests a shift to this ratio. "Their customers, because that is where they get their revenues, are their students," he says. "I would like their customers to be Maine's economy, and we should fund them to that degree. Universities are a tremendous opportunity for growth."
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