Marine Industry Training & Education Council

Marine Sea School & Training Center Directory

Skills USA Workforce Field Test

MITEC needs your help: Skills USA is in the process of updating the standards they use for all of their technical competitions.

In addition to updating the standards to be used in their competitions, they are creating standardized exams in each of the technical areas they deal with which are based on these new standards.

These exams are interactive and represent a real change in the way multiple-choice exams work. The exams can be used as final assessments at the completion of a marine tech training program, or as a pre-hire assessment tool or perhaps as a tool to establish what on-going training an existing employee may need.

We need marine industry teachers and students to register and try this exam. It’s free, and it will give you great insight into what the expectations are for new hires within the industry. Within about 24 hours of registering, you will receive a special password and access key. At that point, you will be able to take the entire exam.

To register — and have access to the beta-test exam – go to the Skills USA website work force ready page.

Thanks in advance for participating,

Ed Sherman

MITEC Professional Development Division Chair.

MITEC Skills Analysis Intro

The MITEC Marine Skills Analysis can be used by a variety of marine industry professionals and individuals interested in becoming a part of our industry’s workforce. The analysis represents several years of research and information gathering from a variety of extremely credible sources.

Some examples of who might use this analysis are employers who may want to evaluate their employee’s skill sets to establish training needs. Curriculum designers and teachers of marine trades programs can use the information to gain insight into what skill sets need to be developed in various topic areas for specific jobs within the industry.

Career changers who need to evaluate their own life skill sets to see what skills or knowledge they may need to acquire in order to perform in the marine industry with confidence will find this information useful. Employers and individuals will find this information useful in building career ladders as the steps are clearly identified. Parents of students considering a marine industry career will be able to use this analysis to assist them in evaluating prospective marine training programs.

The information sources include data provided by all of the major marine engine manufacturers such as Mercury Marine, Yamaha, Honda, Suzuki Motors, Yanmar and Volvo Penta. Additionally, data was provided by the American Boat & Yacht Council, American Boat Builder’s and Repairers Association, the Australian Boat Building trades analysis, United States Coast Guard, Skills USA and the US Department of Labor. Additional information was provided by the Canadian boat building associations in Nova Scotia, Canada, New Brunswick, Canada and British Columbia, Canada. Further information was also provided by the Marine Industry Association of South Florida and the Yacht Broker’s Association of America.

It’s important to note that 36 job titles were identified as part of this research and they are specifically targeted towards the marine service and boat building trades, which is the focus of MITEC. The research identified 74 skill areas and matched these skills to the job titles. The skill set requirements identify general knowledge areas as well as technology specific skills.

We hope you find this information useful, and as always the MITEC considers these documents dynamic. Suggestions for improvement or additions that are relevant are always welcome.

To download the complete file of career definitions, click here. We appreciate your comments on this product. Please use the comments section below to tell us what you think of this project, how you are using the information, and what more information you might need.

MITEC at IBEX 2008

Council Members Staff the MITEC Booth at IBEX 2008

Women and Technology

I’ve seen a number of interesting articles lately about women and technology, with a great on-going discussion taking place on the “Girly Geekdom” website, which includes a link to a New York Times article about how and why women are leaving technology careers for other fields, where they receive better treatment.

I can’t help but wonder how much of this is going on in hands-on technology, too. As we noted at COMITT, we are not a very “diverse” group. What can we do to change that?