People Collaborating for the Greater Good
Just coming off of a 3 day whirlwind of activity at MITAGS-CCMIT for the North American World Maritime Day: Education and Training Summit, I have a few key takeaways from this highly successful collaborative effort:
First and foremost, the maritime community rocks! It is as simple as that. We have the most down to earth, yet sophisticated and caring group of people, who truly love what they do - young and old, navigating and working together in all different sectors and levels of the workforce spectrum. Our industry is a prism of diversity that offers highly skilled and well-paid jobs, where you can still work with your hands, lead a highly complex organization, or watch the stars as part of your job. The maritime industry truly reflects America at its best and unifies us nationally as well as globally on many different levels.
The Millennial workforce and generations after them can help us get to where we need to go with their thirst for knowledge, technical savvy, zero glass ceiling belief, and balanced work ethic.
Our seasoned personnel who have years in the industry can provide deep wisdom and invaluable insight that can only come from experience to mentor our next generation workforce.
Policy and decision makers can inspire and rally the people toward a common vision, especially if they make themselves accessible, ask the right questions, and listen with open hearts and minds on how best to help the maritime industry, not only sustain itself, but to thrive for generations to come.
The “workforce shortage issue” can be turned into a wellspring of qualified and competent people by identifying and bringing down barriers in the industry, like the highly successful Military to Mariner Crosswalk.
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At the heart of all this is collaboration with each other. You can’t possibly know what you don’t know and we sometimes forget what we didn’t know back then. One person, one organization, or one company can’t possibly know it all, do it all, or remember it all. I walked away from this event awestruck and humbled by the intelligence, creativity, and wisdom that was so generously shared throughout the corridors, gathering spaces, and breakout sessions.
A big thank you to all the people who came together for a brief moment in time to set aside their own special interests and work together for the greater good by sharing what they knew, who they knew, and how to connect the dots for a successful North American World Maritime Day event. And a special thank you to the chief collaborators for this event: SOCP, NAMEPA, SUNY Maritime College, and MITAGS.
The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.