The nearly $3.4 billion dry dock modernization project at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard is spurring creative thinking to fill the engineering jobs needed over the next several years.
A hiring pathway for engineers started in 2022 extends thousands of miles across the Pacific through a collaboration between the University of Guam, the University of Hawaiʻi and the military.
UH Mānoa Department of Mechanical Engineering professor Marvin Young has been helping pave the way.
The program allows local Guam students to study at their home university for two years, transfer to UH for mechanical engineering, and join two work co-ops in Hawaiʻi — all in hopes of securing a job at Pearl Harbor and then possibly applying for a transfer back to Guam.
"It's a win-win-win. The University of Guam doesn't have to spend the resources to develop a mechanical engineering program. The University of Hawaiʻi fulfills its mission of diversity as far as the student body. And the shipyard gains by having a stable local Guam workforce to support their Apra shipyard," Young said.
He said there are 17 Guam students in the pathway program. They pay 1.5 times Hawaiʻi resident tuition under the Western Undergraduate Exchange program.
"Also, it's tentative, it's not finalized yet, but we are working with the Navy to come up with a tuition reimbursement opportunity, which would be given to the students who end up eventually working in Guam," Young added.
The Pearl Harbor shipyard employs more than 6,000 civilian workers. More than a thousand are women, including 200 engineers.
This story aired on The Conversation on March 22, 2024. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1. Sophia McCullough adapted this story for the web.
