Domestic Maritime Training: In Extremis
The built-for-purpose National Security Multi-Mission Vessel (NSMV) training ship comes to life. Anybody who has spent four years at a State Maritime Academy (SMA) has also spent time at sea on a Marad-owned training vessel. Today, these platforms are long in the tooth, equipped with outdated equipment and not necessarily conducive to the task of training cadets for a future career at sea. For a long time, though, they’ve gotten the job done. It is also true that some of these hulls are one equipment casualty away from the bone yard, despite that best efforts of the schools tasked with their upkeep. That’s got SMA officials worried. The Massachusetts Maritime Academy’s Academic Dean Brad Lima knows what is at stake. “Kennedy is 50 years old and sound mechanically.
MMA's Brad Lima Talks Maritime Education and Beyond
Maritime employers, thirsting for quality employees in numbers sufficient to run their far flung businesses, continue to struggle to recruit and retain talent despite lingering high unemployment across the other sectors of the economy. On the waterfront, there are many models for producing marine professionals; some quite new and others, time tested. Brad Lima is the Dean and Vice President for Academic Affairs at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. As a 1974 graduate (BS; marine engineering) of the nation’s oldest continuously operating academy…