A new generation of mariners
San Jacinto College offers training to help entry-level students kick-start their careers at sea.
There are two traditional ways to get a job as a mariner: earn a four-year degree at a maritime academy or start as a deckhand and work up to the wheelhouse. San Jacinto College is looking to add a third path. It has created a two-year associate degree that provides entry-level mariners with Coast Guard certificates and training to kick-start their careers. This education, as well as training for current mariners seeking to up-skill, comes from the San Jacinto College Maritime Technology and Training Center that opened in2016.
Programs at this building, which is shaped like a ship and located directly on the Houston Ship Channel, have received a hefty amount of support and funding from maritime companies seeking to address an aging workforce. Chief John Stauffer, a retired U.S. Army mariner who oversees the San Jacinto College Maritime Technology and Training Center, recently spoke with the Chronicle:
Q: How do students earn an associate degree in maritime transportation?
A: One of our industry partners, he coined the phrase that they wanted a better-educated entry-level mariner. So for two years they’ll come here. They’ll go through 15 different certificate-granted, Coast Guardapproved courses, and then a key component is they’ll go out and do internships in the summer. We have students on everything from passenger vessels to towboats to the Boardwalk Beast down in Kemah to the Sam Houston down in the port. We do have a couple that are on large tankers. So we have them out there working. We bring them back, educate them for another year, then we put them back on one more internship. In many cases, that leads to employment right afterward at a higher rate than an entrylevel mariner would get.
Q: Why is it important to get two years of training rather than just working your way up?
A: There are two things that are important to up-skill yourself and to increase from the deck plates to the wheelhouse. One of them is sea time, and the other is education. Everyone needs it. So what we are providing is a mariner who already has at least 960 hours — normally it’s about 120 days of sea time — and they also have the stuff that if you walked into a company, that company’s going to have to pay to send you back to those trainings. So that’s really the key to it. They’re hiring somebody who already has that skill set. And they’re going to fast track to the wheelhouse.
Q: How have maritime companies contributed to this facility?
A: We can walk these grounds and you’ll see it. The one that jumps out is the Houston Pilots with the $1.3 million bridge simulator. There’s a dock that was built by G&H Towing and donated to us. It serves as a secure location for crew changes for G&H Towing, and then we also use it for those assessments that we just can’t complete in a simulation. There’s a barge training pad underneath the building. We partnered with Marquette Transportation Co. A training barge is actually painted on the deck. It has all the components of what you would have on a barge. And we just had a donation of two fast-rescue boats from Royal Caribbean.
Q: What are some tangible goals you’re trying to achieve?
A: Online learning is one of the big things that I really am trying to bring to this campus. The maritime industry, you’re going to work shift work. You’re going to work 14 days on, then seven days off, or 28 days on and 14 days off. If you’ve got to spend a week of those 14 days off at a school, we’ve got to find a way to do a little bit better. There are definitely skill sets that you have to demonstrate through simulation or hands on, but I certainly think there’s ways that we can minimize the time in the classroom. Also, our industry is getting more automated, so I’m really passionate about bringing that realism into the training.
Q: How do you use simulators to teach cybersecurity and automated ships?
A: A lot of it comes down to just situational awareness on the bridge. Do you recognize that the GPS is saying you’re in Antarctica when you’re sailing in the Houston Ship Channel? Your latitude and longitude that says you’re supposed to be in this location, which as a mariner you’re supposed to be doing paper plots as well, we’ll change that. I want them to recognize that there is something that’s not right. Autonomous shipping, the thought of a ship being out there with nobody onboard, it’s just new to everybody. So I simplify it. If I’m on the radio and somebody is coming right at me in the simulator, and I call that person and no one is responding, that essentially means that no one is on the ship. When autonomous shipping becomes a reality, there will be some type of system that connects to somebody in London who is going to respond and say, ‘Yeah, I see you off my starboard bow.’ These things are coming.
Q: Anything I haven’t asked about that you want to discuss?
A: The Domestic Maritime Centers of Excellence. It has been a push for the college since before I got here, and it was signed into legislation in December of last year. The legislation says that MARAD (Maritime Administration), which for as long as it’s been around has supported the six state academies and one federal academy, they will now support two-year technical and community colleges that are designated Maritime Centers of Excellence. Right now, we’re coming up with criteria for MARAD. So it’s huge because we will now have
national recognition.