This month marks the end of our first Marine Trades Pre-Apprenticeship Program! This initiative strives to equip young adults with essential skills and open pathways to rewarding careers in the marine trades. Over the past six months, our Pre-Apprentices participated in career workshops, site visits to shipyards and tugboat companies, and the annual Tall Ships America conference in Baltimore, MD.
This program was made possible through the Brook J. Lenfest Foundation, which provided the Guild a $50K challenge grant to help us raise the funds needed to support the first iteration of our program. We also thank our crew members, the Guild community, our educators, our community partners, and our workshop leaders for all of the opportunities they have shared with our Pre-Apprentices (PAs).
As the program comes to a close, we want to celebrate and thank our PAs--Yvonne "Yve" Flowers-Huffman, Felix Agosto, and Roxy Hancock--for all of their hard work since joining us last November. We will be hosting a PA Program Celebration Potluck on Saturday, March 29th, 5PM-7PM on our barge, Poplar. Be sure to stop by and wish our PAs well in the next steps of their careers, and let us know if you plan to bring a dish!
Here, we've asked our PAs to reflect on the program, the skills they've gained, and how it has shaped their thinking around their future career paths and opportunities. Keep reading to learn more about their time with PSPG!
Yvonne "Yve" Flowers-Huffman
What has been your favorite project you’ve worked on so far?
I believe that I felt most productive and happy in the program when I was helping set up the ship’s winter cover. It involved crawling around in the barge’s bilge, hauling a very large amount of lumber to the ship, and days of screwing in, batoning, making scaffolding, and using a propane torch to get the cover frame and the plastic sheath up. Did I mostly just like crawling around hard to reach areas and using a flamethrower? Probably. But getting to help with something I would never have gotten the chance to otherwise has been wonderful.
What are some major takeaways you have learned from this program?
I kind of came into the position knowing very little in the way of trades skills. So learning about how to use power tools, tall-ship specific tools, and how to work as a crew will certainly help me with anything I choose to do after.
How has this opportunity impacted your future career prospects?
The craziest thing about this program was getting to attend the annual Tall Ships America conference. Getting to meet lovely people from a bunch of different boats have greatly opened up my options to the future, and now that I’m on their radar in such a small community is great. Besides that, having trade knowledge and the skills to work with my hands will make sure that I’ll definitely have things to do if I don’t have a job. Right now though, this program makes me want to pursue a career in non-profit work and cement myself within the Philadelphia landscape.
What’s next for you?
I’m going to try to finish up my Masters in Social Work and continue helping out the PSPG and the Gazela as much as I can.
Anything else you’d like to share?
I think this program is great for people looking for direction. You’ll definitely leave with a sense of what you want to do and a big community to support you too.
Roxy Hancock
What has been your favorite project you’ve worked on so far?
Probably the welding, getting to weld the fan and learning all of the different things to do with that, including electrical work. But also the most recent project we’ve been working on with the [companionway coaming and] hatch and everything has been really fun.
What are some major takeaways you have learned from this program?
We’ve worked on a lot of leadership skills and things like that. I’ve learned my particular style of leadership, which has been very, very cool to understand the psychology behind that. We’ve definitely picked up a lot of technical skills, and the financial classes have also been very, very helpful and cool.
How has this opportunity impacted your future career prospects?
It's given me a lot of technical skills, which has helped me in the job that I am going to next. The leadership thing is of course going to be helpful in any high-paying job. Welding is always a very, very good thing to know career-wise, because you will always, always have a job.
What is next for you?
I am going to go work on billboards: essentially billboard repair, putting everything up, working at height, things like that. The safety regulations [in the program] have also been helpful for learning all of the different OSHA at-height regulations, so things like that have been good.
Anything else you’d like to share?
In future, I think the program could do a couple of things better, like [adding] scholarships workshops, but other than that, the apprenticeship program has been very, very helpful in figuring myself out and figuring out where I would want to go in life and things like that.
Felix Agosto
What has been your favorite project you’ve worked on so far?
My favorite project has been the double fan box. It was great being able to diagnose that problem while just doing routine maintenance, and then once we’ve figured out that we couldn't have just brought the fan back to life, sizing the new ones, installing the new ones, getting the wiring done was great because it allowed me to perfect my finished product. I’ve done a lot of wiring over the years for different sculptures, but it was not supposed to look pretty. So, making something that was supposed to look nice was a great deal–I got a great deal of satisfaction out of that, and in addition to that: being able to source all of the parts, search around the barge, and then do the fine detail work of painting the switch and getting the stickers to label the on-off positions. It was a very self-contained project. A lot of things on the ship have been, “Well, we need to fix this piece or that piece”. But being able to have a single unit play such an important role–that was huge for me.
What are some major takeaways you have learned from this program?
Being able to work with people of different leadership styles, but most importantly I would say–we were in charge of completing projects on our own. We had a general guideline of what we needed to do, but it was up to us almost completely to get it done. So having that freedom was essential to being able to grow as a leader and as a professional in this area.
How has this opportunity impacted your future career prospects?
This has confirmed to me that [engineering] is what I want to do. It is not something that I would want forever, but it is certainly the next stepping stone. It was great being able to see the highs and lows of what this field would offer without having the fear of having tight scary deadlines. We had the freedom to just try things.
Anything else you’d like to share?
I’m eternally grateful for this opportunity in not only being able to hone these skills, but also being paid to do it. That’s not something you see a lot in this industry, so I think that this is certainly a model for others to follow.
What is next for you?
I am looking into joining the U.S. Coast Guard or looking into going to school for Maritime Systems.
Why a Maritime Trades Pre-Apprenticeship Program?
The Marine Trades Pre-Apprenticeship Program is more than just a training initiative; it's a pathway to a brighter future for our participants. For decades PSPG volunteers have discovered careers in maritime trades through the Guild. This program focuses those proven capabilities on a demographic that can greatly benefit: young Philadelphians aged 18-26. By targeting this age group, we aim to offer participants a unique opportunity to discover their passion and potentially build a career in marine trades. By providing them with the skills and experiences needed to succeed in the maritime industry, we are helping to create a diverse and skilled workforce that will contribute to the preservation of our maritime heritage.
About the Brook J. Lenfest Foundation
The Brook J. Lenfest Foundation is a charitable foundation established by Brook J. Lenfest in 2000, whose trustees include Brook and his mother Marguerite. It is dedicated to making people aware of positive life choices and providing support and opportunities for those motivated to pursue them. Its grants focus mainly on education, job training and mentoring programs.
Philadelphia Foundation provides administrative and management support services for the Brook J. Lenfest Foundation. It receives grant applications and distributes grants approved by the Brook J. Lenfest Foundation Board of Directors.
About Philadelphia Foundation
Founded in 1918, Philadelphia Foundation strengthens the economic, social and civic vitality of Greater Philadelphia. Philadelphia Foundation grows effective philanthropic investment, connects individuals and institutions across sectors and geography, and advances civic initiatives through partnerships and collaboration. A publicly supported foundation, the Philadelphia Foundation manages more than 1,000 charitable funds established by its donors and makes over 1,000 grants and scholarship awards each year. To learn more visit www.philafound.org.