Yesterday, Electric Boat President Kevin Graney visited students currently enrolled in the welding and machining programs at the New England Institute of Technology’s Post Road campus. Electric Boat partners with several regional educational institutions to help train future employees of EB in skilled trades.
EB recently announced that it would hire more than 2000 people in 2021, to support full-scale production of the Columbia and Virginia classes. Over the past decade, EB has been making investments to position the company for concurrent production, including investments in modernizing and expanding our facilities, working with our supply base to ensure their preparedness and hiring and training thousands of new employees.
Despite 2020 being a challenging year with COVID restrictions, 333 employees have completed, or are in the process of completing, one of the Rhode Island pipeline programs. By the end of 2021, we anticipate more than 1,000 additional employees will be trained through the Rhode Island pipelines. Similar programs in CT have trained more than 1,100 employee over the past several years. These programs provide training that decreases the length of time it takes for a new tradesperson to reach our required proficiency for skills like welding, pipefitting and electrical.
