Training on the water
Nonprofits launch jobs skills program for maritime trades
STAMFORD — For those who do not live on the shore, it’s easy to forget Stamford is a coastal city, let alone that the nearby water provides a gateway to a thriving maritime economy.
Connecticut’s marine industry has over 75,000 wellpaying jobs, from commercial fisherman to deck hand to enginerepair worker and more, according to SoundWaters, a Stamfordbased nonprofit that runs educational programs in the Long
Island Sound region.
This industry, however, is largely unknown to a large chunk of city residents who may be best poised to benefit from maritime trades, said Mike Bagley, SoundWaters vice president for programs.
“It’s a huge industry, it creates billions of dollars in revenue, and if you don’t know about it, you don’t know about it,” Bagley said.
“Though they’re entrylevel jobs, they’re not minimum wage, nongrowth jobs,” said Bagley, noting many marine positions can eventually lead to management jobs at a marina or on a boat.
Bagley and other SoundWaters staff are now working to change the inaccessibility of jobs in the Sound through Harbor Corps, a pilot jobs skills program geared toward the maritime industry.
Before coming to SoundWaters, Bagley ran a job and life skills training curriculum for young adults at a nonprofit in Newark, New Jersey, and had longdreamed of building a similar program for SoundWaters.
“Our idea was to use our two strengths — our relationships with the community and our relationships with marine employers — and create a program that bridges those two things,” Bagley said.
After applying for and failing to receive grants to start Harbor Corps, Bagley and SoundWaters decided to start it on their own in conjunction with Domus, a Stamford human services nonprofit that already runs a workforce development program for jobs in the auto, culinary, and carpentry businesses, among others.
“It felt like a natural fit because we have the workforce development component but would never have had the opportunity to train kids out on the water,” said Mitch DePino, director of Domus’ Work and Learn program.
Although Bagley eventually envisions that Harbor Corps will last four months and serve students ages 18 to about 24, the program launched with a fourweek pilot earlier this month.
Using a donated 1973 18foot catboat as the central project, a group of seven students with preexisting relationships with Domus have been working everyday for the past three weeks to learn the basics of boat repair at both SoundWaters’ Boccuzzi Park location and in the carpentry studio at Domus.
“It never crossed my mind before to work on a boat. I’m literally being introduced to a whole new world right now,” said Scotty Bazile, one of the six men and one woman in the inaugural Harbor Corps class.
Bazile, 23, grew up in the city and graduated from Stamford High School in 2014. For the last few years he’s been working odd jobs in retail and catering and rarely came down to the waterfront before starting at Harbor Corps.
“When they told me about it I was like, ‘Wow, that’s something nobody else could say they did,’ ” said Bazile, noting he hopped on board immediately.
Like Bazile, Donovan Carter also grew up in Stamford. The 25yearold said that while he’s realized he doesn’t want to work in a maritime trade — Carter instead hopes to be an electrician — he’s found the program valuable.
“Even though it’s not something I’m thinking about as a career, I became really comfortable with these guys and just doing the work,” Carter said.
Bazile, on the other hand, hopes to pursue a job in the marine industry and plans to do so once the program ends next week.
“It’s peaceful by the water and boats are a handson type of job and I love a job like that,” he said.