Rhode Island guidance counselors get schooled in trades needs

Filed under Career Advice, Skilled Trades, Skilled Trades Shortage, The Future of Trades, Trade Schools

At a special day for Rhode Island high school guidance counselors, representatives of various careers were allowed to school the counselors in how to get kids excited about various career tracks including skilled trades and trade school.

Marine trades in particular relished the opportunity. Karl Nordstrom, representing New England Boatworks, and Wendy Mackie, serving as executive director of My Turn Rhode Island, told counselors that there are over 6,000 jobs in the marine trades sector, and another 2,400 people needed over the next decade. While marine trades have talked to students in the past, “what we haven’t been able to do [until now] is target you,” said Nordstrom.

“All kids say they want to go to college,” said Donna Tobin, president-elect of the Rhode Island School Counselors Association. “But I ask what they’re planning to do with it, what they want to get out of it . . . You don’t want to send a kid to college if it’s not going to help. Sometimes they need to find a career first, and then see how college is going to help them.”

Rhode Island is projecting an increase of 54,000 jobs by 2016, and half of those jobs will require some form of higher education, including trades training available at trade schools such as New England Institute of Technology (NEIT) or the Baran Institute of Technology.