An Interview with Laura Hastings

Deputy Program Director for Real Jobs Rhode Island

Real Jobs Rhode Island (Real Jobs RI) is housed within the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training (DLT). It is a sector-based partnership program that helps set up workforce development efforts that are specifically designed for the industry for which the partnership exists. These vary in scope. Some industries need year-long apprenticeship programs, while others may only need a three-hour CPR class. We work to meet the needs of the industry, recognizing that we aren’t experts in these industries, and partnering with those who are.

The process for forming these partnerships begins with DLT releasing a solicitation. Interested industries will respond saying why their industry needs to be a partner and suggesting specific training based on what the industry thinks it needs. DLT can decide to do one or the other or both or to work towards something else, but once an industry becomes a partner the award is for three years, with the ability to extend it another two. Then it could go again for another solicitation for those that are expiring. We have more than 30 partnerships right now and have had more than 40 at one time. They run the gamut from manufacturing to technology to healthcare to construction and beyond.

With respect to offshore wind, we have two partnerships. The first is called WindWinRI and is a partnership with the North Kingstown Chamber of Commerce. Some of the work WindWinRI has done has been nothing short of earthshattering. When they became a partner in 2017 the offshore wind industry wasn’t really ready for hiring at any sort of scale. They didn’t have jobs to offer at that time, but DLT knew offshore wind was coming and we wanted to be prepared for it. We decided to use the momentum that the offshore wind industry was gaining to work with the Chamber to create a program for high schoolers. Rhode Island began a certification for offshore wind knowing that exposure to the industry itself could help grow it. It was the first high school offshore wind certification in the nation.

The partnership with the Chamber has done a few different things, but the bellwether is really the youth work; the importance of growing an industry and getting exposure to something that’s coming. One of my mantras is, “you can’t be what you can’t see.” If you don’t get exposed to different things, you don’t know what’s out there.

Rhode Island has the luxury of having an offshore wind farm right here, so we can take a field trip and get the kids out there looking at something that they don’t know about yet and the result is really incredible.

The program began at North Kingstown High School and then was expanded to Shea High School in Pawtucket. While North Kingstown is a suburban, coastal community, Pawtucket is an urban one well inland. I had the opportunity to go to the wind farm with the students from Shea and some of them had never been on a boat before. Some had never been on the ocean. Sometimes it’s challenging to invest in something off in the future, when there are pressing problems at the moment. It involved a lot of foresight and innovation on the part of the North Kingstown Chamber.

The second partnership is with the Business Network for Offshore Wind. They created a training program called Foundation 2 Blade (F2B). It can be presented in different ways—from one day to many days—depending on how many modules you want to cover. In December, through Real Jobs RI, we allowed for Rhode Island businesses and individuals to take the training. Our intention was for small businesses to see the industry as a whole and find a place in it. They might make a certain item for the marine trades and, through F2B, realize that they could make a similar item that is needed in the offshore wind industry. It’s about getting exposure. Because the industry isn’t in full form yet, we’ve really had to work to expose it otherwise we’ll all be caught flatfooted.

The offshore wind industry will come at us hard and we want to be ready, so bringing attention to it at an early stage has been our focus so far.

Real Jobs RI is involved in helping develop the workforce for many sectors of the Blue Economy besides offshore wind. I am the partnership advisor for oyster farming and commercial fishing, for example. We have a registered apprenticeship program in both of those industries and both are firsts in the country. I’m also the partnership advisor for the nursery and landscape association (RINLA). While on its face this doesn’t seem like a Blue Economy issue, we know that what happens in our nurseries and landscape spaces impacts our Blue Economy. We have partnerships with the Rhode Island Marine Trades Association (RIMTA) and the Southeastern New England Defense Industry Alliance (SENEDIA) as well.

Real Jobs RI’s intention is to meet the need so if the need changes, then our approach needs to change. When we first started with the oyster farming partnership, for example, it was just a 4-week program on how to be an oyster farm hand. Then it got a little more complicated because the oyster farmers wanted to really get engaged in the community in ways like the farm-to-table meals. That was the first growth piece to the training. Then there was the issue that you can’t actually get people out to the farm without a Captain’s license. So, we added that and then we put it all into a package for the registered apprenticeship. There’s training as well as an internship component. Everyone in the training gets lessons in things like building and cleaning cages and how oysters grow and why you have to have different sized mesh. This all culminates in an internship at an oyster farm for a week to see if it fits. The internship is really powerful because it’s one thing to learn how to do something but it’s another to actually do the work. In addition, through Real jobs RI, we’re able to outfit everybody so they don’t have to go out and buy waders, rubber boots, gloves, etc. It’s important to eliminate the barriers to training in order to get more people involved in the workforce. At Real Jobs RI, we try to alleviate those barriers.

Helping companies land and expand in Rhode Island,
we’re the state’s economic development agency.

The views and opinions expressed in this Offshore Source WebExclusive are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position held by the Offshore Source editorial team.
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