A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR A REGIONAL MARITIME INSTITUTE

 Scene of Intermodal Activities, The West of England, Mid-Nineteenth Century

Maritime museums are tributes to the past; they have their role in teaching maritime history. What our country, the maritime profession, and our region all need to regain and maintain their competitive advantage is a Maritime Institute rather than a Maritime Museum : well-defined paths to a viable future, in-place processes --- primarily educational --- that equip the work force with the abilities, skills, and education needed on a personal and professional level, and that contribute toward solving the critical shortages of workers in a variety of high-priority skills.

Professional periodicals such as Marine Technology Reporter, Maritime Reporter & Engineering News; Marine Log, and Ocean News & Technology --- the latter magazine published just across the peninsula in Stuart, Florida --- make frequent reference to the shortages of trained workers in maritime career fields .

Mariners need to meet stringent certification requirements and are in frequent need of update and upgrade, as technologies increase work environments beyond merely "knowing the ropes" .  

Shipyards and repair facilities are shorthanded in workers who are skilled in working with new composite materials, precision automated machine tools, and specialty welding techniques for new metal alloys;

A work force skilled in the utilization of newer, more complex electronics is also needed, because high-technology engineering is utilized in the most basic products;

Specialists in optical devices, lasers, ultra-spectrum frequencies, and remote sensing are important to small companies.

The newly-emerging Florida Polytechnic University at Lakeland, about halfway between the two cities of Tampa and Orlando, will be playing an ever greater role in military and scientific missions; AND

Enormous growth in undersea exploration, especially involving unmanned autonomous and remotely-controlled underwater vehicles, is driven by new must-have tools of modern research in oceanography, security, and defense.

There are, of course, many careers for which a deep, professional knowledge of maritime operations is necessary, in addition to actual experience at sea . This includes experience on so-called Brown Water --- the lakes, rivers, canals, and Waterways that make up the national American Marine Highway system, a system that, for example, magically transforms the City of Pittsburgh, some 400 miles inland far away from any ocean, into an international seaport.

There are a wide variety of careers which do require that knowledge in addition to the obvious the maritime services and merchant shipping : 

the various water-based operations such as tug and tow boats (a major component of our industrial supply chains) and ferries;

recreational mariners, ranging from yacht captains and crew to small charter boat operations;

of course, private recreational boaters who are often placed into a boat they have just purchased with no more instruction than the location of the helm and the anchor;

lucrative sportfishing operations, which require dual knowledge of both boat operation and fishing lore;

and, certainly, the career opportunities that become open to certain law enforcement personnel, in the marine police, various sheriff's departments, and the Fish and Wildlife Service,   

... all these in addition to the wide variety of land-based, non-seagoing careers that require a thorough knowledge of the complex systems of many maritime subjects, about which much more in a later blog .