Eastern Shipbuilding Group, Panama City, Fla., is working with Gulf County to develop a maritime training academy aimed at building a local pipeline of skilled labor, as workforce constraints continue to challenge shipbuilders across the industry.
The planned Gulf County and Eastern Shipbuilding Group Maritime Academy will be located adjacent to the company’s Port St. Joe facility. The project is still in development, with land secured and initial grant funding in place, but additional funding is needed before construction and full program rollout can begin.
The effort is driven by a broader industry issue, Eastern officials said.
“I don’t think demand is the biggest constraint,” said England Reeves, director of operations at Eastern Shipbuilding Group’s Port St. Joe facility. “Workforce is the biggest constraint.”
The academy is intended to bridge the gap between general trade education and the specific demands of shipyard work. While public school and trade programs provide foundational skills, Reeves said they often lack the resources and specialization needed to prepare workers for the complexities of shipbuilding.
Students coming out of the academy would be trained in disciplines such as welding, shipfitting, pipefitting, and electrical work, with a focus on shipyard-specific requirements, including safety protocols, regulatory standards, and technical interpretation of drawings and welding symbols.
The goal, Reeves said, is to produce workers who can contribute immediately.
“We’re not looking for students to come out of a program just to have a nice resume,” he said. “We’re looking for them to make an impact on day one when they come out of that school.”
The academy itself has not yet launched, but Eastern has already been building out its workforce pipeline through partnerships with local schools across northwest Florida and into Alabama. Those efforts include supporting welding programs with materials and working with instructors to align training with shipyard needs.
In some cases, demand has outpaced expectations. Reeves said local schools have seen a surge in enrollment in welding programs, with some rural schools reporting 70 to 80 students in a single program.
Eastern has also developed hands-on initiatives to engage students earlier, including a partnership with local organizations to design and fabricate artificial reefs. The program connects STEM and welding students, who work together to build reef structures that are later deployed offshore.
Reeves said those types of efforts are part of an effort to rebuild a workforce base in Gulf County, which lost its industrial foundation after the closure of a paper mill that once anchored the local economy.
“That really left a void in this town,” he said. “Trying to pull talent for industry-based trades in a tourist town has been a tremendous challenge for us.”
The maritime academy is expected to play a significant role in addressing that gap, though Reeves said it will be one piece of a larger workforce strategy.
“It’s a piece. It’s a large piece,” he said.
If fully realized, the program could help establish a more consistent pipeline of workers trained specifically for shipyard environments, where safety requirements, technical standards, and working conditions differ significantly from general trade settings.
“There are technical challenges to working in a shipyard that you may not learn in a school system that is not geared toward shipbuilding practices,” he said. “Whether that be safety, the safety mindset and regulations that we’re forced to work with, or just working conditions in general, those school systems aren’t able to dive in that deep and get that specific.”
