An Education and Workforce Development Asset

Our education and workforce development programs dovetail nicely with key goals and priorities on both the State and Federal level. While we were unsuccessful in relocating a retired aircraft carrier to Narragansett Bay as a family attraction, education center and museum, many of our plans and programs are still translatable to the land-based facility we envisage at Quonset.

As the cornerstone for a Hall of Fame Academy, we will use the vast inventory of machine tools, shop equipment and even institutional kitchen gear that we rescued from the aircraft carriers Saratoga and John F Kennedy over the past ten years. We will be able to offer:

• Machine shop and welding facilities
• Woodworking shop
• Fiberglass and composite materials workshop
• Electrical, electronics and communications shop
• Hydraulics and pump service workshop
• Damage control training: “thinking on your feet to overcome emergencies” 
• Industrial finishes and coatings lab
• Prototyping workshop with 3-D design and modeling tools
• Navigation technology
• HAZ-MAT response gear

These vocational training programs would provide young people with useful skills and experiences to help them become productive members of society. With proper planning and support, our facility could become one of the most comprehensive career training facilities in the state, with limited additional capital investment.

These programs will also benefit lower income and minority students, laid-off workers needing retraining and returning combat veterans seeking reintegration into the workforce.

Benefits of a successful vocational and workforce development program include higher wages for graduates, improved children and family healthcare, reduced public assistance, contributions to the local economy and strong return on both State and Federal investment.

Four of the potential elements within our Academy are: a state-wide Skilled Trades Academy; a local Career and Tech Center; an Aviation Academy specializing in warbird restoration and construction; and the educational programs administered by the famous Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), which will be co-located with us.

Several years ago, the Director of Adult and Technical Education for the State Department of Education, endorsed our plans as follows:

The Rhode Island Department of Elementary and Secondary Education appreciates the opportunity to explore programmatic initiatives in the areas of education and training for youth and adults that align well with its high school, adult education, and career and technical education reform efforts… to increase the stock of college-educated or otherwise highly skilled labor in the state. In that context, ideas currently under consideration by the … Foundation such as a skilled trades academy for youngsters and adults and …a quest that requires participants to use different high school course disciplines and skills expected of high school graduates are of great interest to the Department.

At the higher education level, joint ventures will form the backbone of this program. The project has access to 86 colleges and universities within 50 miles – one of the largest such concentrations of higher ed facilities in the entire country.

Rationale for supporting this project includes:

1. There is universal agreement that creation of jobs is critical to the nation’s continued economic growth.  The enormous job training benefit available through this creative reuse of assets can be obtained at a fraction of the cost of other options.
2. The American taxpayer tens of thousands of dollars to pay for the equipment we seeking to refurbish and put back to use. Successful transformation into the community asset we propose will allow that investment of taxpayer dollars to continue to benefit all Americans.
3. Most communities in Rhode Island today simply do not have the capability to fund major new capital investment for education or job training projects. Re-utilization of these assets makes economic sense.