Although he had some experience working in construction, Kolby Gomes says learning the ins and outs of pipefitting was like studying a foreign language.
But during weeks of training, Gomes learned how to use the many hand and power tools involved in fabricating, bending, cutting and joining pipes and how to read complicated blueprints to know where and how to properly place those pipes.
Now the Providence resident is a step closer to building nuclear-powered submarines at General Dynamics Electric Boat.
“I would be surprised if anyone with a trades background could come in and understand it right away,” Gomes said. “It’s really difficult.”
Years ago, he might have picked up his beginner training in the shipyard, shadowing experienced pipefitters who could teach Gomes and other trainees the basics. Now things are different.
Gomes gained the knowledge in classes that are part of Electric Boat’s workforce development partnership with the Community College of Rhode Island.
It’s a public-private alliance that’s been around for years but one that is being mimicked more frequently as businesses see the benefit of bringing to bear the combined powers of the state’s higher education system and some of its largest employers.
On top of teaching typical education courses, higher ed institutions are customizing coursework for specific companies for jobs that need specialized training, with financial assistance from the employers themselves.
These programs are nothing new, according to Shannon Gilkey, Rhode Island’s commissioner of postsecondary education. Companies and educational institutions have been partnering on a smaller scale to boost the number of workforce-ready Rhode Islanders for many years, he says.
But the partnerships seemingly have grown more common in recent years as the demand for workers with specialized skills has surged.
Recent examples of those partnerships include CVS Health Corp.’s involvement with the state-operated Woonsocket Education Center, which includes a simulated CVS pharmacy for hands-on career skills training as part of the drug store chain’s Workforce Innovation Talent Center.
There is also an offshore-wind safety training center under construction at CCRI’s Lincoln campus, partially paid for with a $1 million grant from Orsted A/S and Eversource LLC, partners in the development of Revolution Wind off the coast of Rhode Island.
And in September, Rhode Island-based casino operator Bally’s Corp. donated $5 million to CCRI – the largest gift in school history – to create certificate and degree programs focused on the gaming, hospitality and security industries.
Alyssa Alvarado, executive director of the Governor’s Workforce Board, says the shift toward these types of industry-driven collaborations started in the last decade. Then the Real Jobs Rhode Island initiative was launched in 2015, providing financial support to better align the state’s job training with employers’ specific needs.
The program, which isn’t part of Bally’s partnership, was started under former Gov. Gina M. Raimondo, now the U.S. commerce secretary. Gov. Daniel J. McKee has not only maintained it but gained approval from the General Assembly to put $20 million of federal relief funds into the program spread over this fiscal year and the next one.
“Coordination of this scale to meet an employer’s workforce needs had never really been done anywhere else,” Alvarado said.
[caption id="attachment_457448" align="aligncenter" width="1024"]
INTO THE MIX: Student Jenn Brown pours a solution into a jacketed reactor as part of a course on process technology offered by the Community College of Rhode Island at the Westerly Education Center. Process technologists are needed in health science, pharmaceutical and medical research industries, among others.
COURTESY COMMUNITY COLLEGE OF RHODE ISLAND[/caption]
‘REAL’ CHANGE?
Over the nine years of its existence, Real Jobs RI has issued millions of dollars in grants that have financed the creation of more than 60 partnerships, including the one involving CCRI and Electric Boat, and have helped train more than 36,000 workers to enter a range of industries from aquaculture to finance to data analytics, according to Alvarado.
The program has helped fund the launch of eight adult workforce training programs at the New England Institute of Technology and the Westerly Education Center, new employer-driven course content at 10 high school-level career and technical centers across the state, as well as several apprenticeship programs at CCRI for employees already working at EB, Alvarado says.
Gomes says he got his foot in the door at Electric Boat in October 2022 when he applied for an entry-level pipefitter position while deployed overseas as a member of the Army National Guard.
Once he returned to Rhode Island, Gomes was enrolled in the next available six-week maritime pipefitting course at the state-operated Westerly Education Center, which began last October.
After that, Gomes says he went on to what’s known as gap training at Electric Boat’s Quonset location before moving onto the final phase known as the active learning center. This is where Gomes says he combines the skills and knowledge gained from the first two phases so he’s ready to take on his new role.
Now as Gomes has embarked on his journey with the submarine manufacturer, he feels as though he has job security close to home that will also allow him to continue his military role.
Gomes is one of just thousands of students who have participated in Electric Boat and CCRI’s workforce development partnership – what was considered a pioneering employer-driven program in the region that was started years before Real Jobs RI.
CCRI has been forming a variety of workforce development partnerships since its beginning in the 1960s, said Jennie Johnson, vice president of the division of CCRI’s workforce partnerships.
Now the school has hundreds of partnerships, but it wasn’t until 2016 that the school started larger-scale collaborations, Johnson says.
Electric Boat’s partnership began around that time when the submarine builder, which employs more than 5,000 people locally, was relying heavily on training on the job, according to Jessica Key, EB manager of supply and workforce development.
But when the number of trainees grew, the company realized it was cutting into the productivity of experienced workers who were assisting new employees. So, Electric Boat changed its tactics.
“We really recognized that we needed to understand how to do new-hire training outside of on-the-job training because we were going to overstrain our incumbent workforce,” Key said.
Key says partnerships with schools such as CCRI and New England Tech continued to grow, but really took off once Real Jobs RI was launched because it helped with funding.
Then the company’s training capacity was boosted even further when the Westerly Education Center opened in 2017, where CCRI and Electric Boat are anchors.
This year, the company is expecting to reach a milestone of 10,000 employees who have been trained specifically to work at Electric Boat, including Gomes. This includes around 5,000 employees trained through CCRI alone since 2016, says Johnson, noting that the program trained around 1,500 employees in 2023.
And Electric Boat, which in October was awarded more than $1 billion worth of government contracts for submarine work, plans to continue growing its workforce partnerships with local colleges, Key says.
[caption id="attachment_457450" align="aligncenter" width="1006"]
BRIGHT FUTURE: An instructor, left, shows a group of students welding techniques at the “Boat for Next Gen” program, a collaboration among Electric Boat, New England Institute of Technology, Community College of Rhode Island, the Westerly Education Center and the Southeastern New England Defense Industry Alliance.
COURTESY GENERAL DYNAMICS ELECTRIC BOAT[/caption]
INNOVATIVE APPROACHES
But Electric Boat isn’t the only company to have formed nontraditional workforce development programs and partnerships.
Cranston-based manufacturer Taco Inc., a maker of controls and pumps for heating and ventilation systems, established its Taco Learning Center in the early 1990s with labs and classrooms where workers could receive job training, and at one point even had more than 100 courses available ranging from literature to blueprint reading.
Then the company invested $20 million to develop the Taco Innovation and Development Center in 2012 to expand its employees’ training.
Like Electric Boat, Taco has also partnered with many Rhode Island schools such as Roger Williams University, University of Rhode Island, CCRI, Johnson & Wales University and Rhode Island College to offer employees more education opportunities.
Even now the company is eying a refresh of its workforce development program, says Victoria McCoy, Taco senior vice president of global human resources.
“You can’t expect that a tool that was built five or 10 years ago is going to be exactly the same tool that’s going to be effective today,” McCoy said.
And there are many more smaller, successful programs that have flown under the radar, according to workforce development officials.
Johnson says CCRI has partnered with large health care employers such as Care New England Health System and Lifespan Corp. for such things as pharmacy technician and certified nursing assistant training.
But much of CCRI’s programming is designed to help groups of businesses as opposed to a single employer, such as securities industry training developed in collaboration with several financial institutions, including Fidelity Investments Inc., Bank of America Corp. and Citizens Financial Group Inc.
SPECIAL PROGRAMMING
Still, more recently Providence-based Bally’s announced it was donating $5 million to help CCRI create and launch a new program for gaming, hospitality and security training.
While the announcement came in September, conversations about setting up the partnership have been in the works for years, says Kim Barker, Bally’s executive vice president and chief legal officer and CCRI Foundation president.
Bally’s had already established a workforce partnership with CCRI, but as the company’s labor needs grow, it saw this as an opportunity to invest in both its own and Rhode Island’s talent development, Barker says.
“I think our company, like many others, have found themselves in a constant need for just refreshing talent,” she said.
CCRI says it’s working with faculty and staff to build the curriculum to have degree programs ready to launch next fall. At the same time, the college’s Division of Workforce Partnerships is moving to quickly develop short-term credential programs for Bally’s existing workforce.
But Barker points out that businesses are not the only ones benefiting from public-private partnerships.
Through Bally’s donation, the school will become Rhode Island’s only higher education institution to offer certificate- or associate degree-based programming with a gaming-focused curriculum.
This curriculum, which hasn’t been finalized yet, is expected to cover topics such as slot machine technology, culinary arts and hotel management in a variety of formats on CCRI’s campus and at Bally’s properties.
“We see that in our industry, when we have better-prepared employees who have opportunities, they go broader than where they start. And we think that this curriculum is one of the ways to do that,” Barker said.
The situation is similar to another big collaboration between CCRI and Revolution Wind LLC, a 65-turbine wind farm slated to be constructed 15 miles off the coast of Rhode Island that is backed by Orsted and Eversource.
The R.I. Department of Labor and Training, R.I. Commerce Corp., the Rhode Island Building and Construction Trades Council and Building Futures are participating, too.
Officials say the partnership, which includes a $1 million donation from Revolution Wind, will establish the state’s first “global wind organization” training certificate program at CCRI’s Lincoln campus. The state is banking on the offshore wind farm industry needing thousands of workers as more turbines are constructed and require maintenance.
Trainees will learn first aid, fire awareness, working at heights and sea survival, and the donation will help finance building a training center that will include a pool to simulate offshore conditions for sea survival training and 30-foot-tall structures on which students will learn safe climbing practices and rope techniques.
‘GAME CHANGER’
Specialized collaborations such as these aren’t going away, according to business, labor and education leaders. But much of their success relies on each partner’s willingness to put in the work.
“Public and private partnerships are hard but not impossible,” said Thomas Giordano, executive director of Partnership for Rhode Island, a nonprofit CEO roundtable involving the state’s largest employers.
Giordano says it is important to ensure that partnering institutions continue collaborating after the program is initially formed.
Indeed, Johnson says CCRI’s more successful partnerships have gone through constant revisions well after they were initially up and running.
For example, in its partnerships with Lifespan and Care New England, leaders from both institutions meet regularly – sometimes nearly weekly – so the school has a better idea of what kinds of curriculum to offer to meet the health systems’ needs.
Among the main challenges institutions face when running these larger partnerships are funding and managing logistics, Key says.
Though Real Jobs RI has helped Electric Boat’s ability to fund its programs, the company is always looking to help workers navigate barriers to employment such as transportation, child care and affordable housing.
To do this, the company has worked to help connect workers with resources within their communities and make it as easy as possible for them, Key says.
Alvarado says the need for programs to have strategic community partners, wide-ranging support services, active performance management and ongoing communication with employers is especially important, as the data suggests the programs are currently serving those who need the most support.
The specialized training partnerships are not only about having a pipeline of new workers ready to work, but they can be a difference maker in attracting and retaining talent when there’s tight competition for help.
“You retain good talent, but also that message gets out into the community where you’re looking to recruit employees,” said McCoy at Taco. “If you’re able to show we have purposeful programs, that will give you an opportunity to build a career and job stability that will help build your pipeline of talent as well.”
Key says Electric Boat’s partnerships have been crucial for the company’s workforce readiness and retention because employees are much more prepared and educated about their careers before they even start.
“We could not hire the number of people who are as ready to work as they are without these programs – it’s been a game changer,” Key said.
Now that he’s finished the initial training to be a pipefitter, Gomes is already mapping out a career in building subs. He says participating in a two-year apprenticeship program and a one-year supervisor course are both in his five-year plan, as he intends to continue working at Electric Boat even after he finishes his 20 years of military service.
“I hope to still be working there and be on the top of my trade,” Gomes said.
