Westerly Education Center Expands Capacity to Train Thousands of Additional Electric Boat Employees in Advanced Manufacturing Trades
General Dynamics Electric Boat had an unusual problem: A hiring spree that necessitated the need to train thousands of new employees. They turned to Westerly Education Center, a workforce development and education training facility that has trained more than 6,000 people for Electric Boat work since 2017 in maritime manufacturing trades skills necessary to produce submarines ordered by the United State Navy. With the facility changes, Electric Boat will be able to increase the number of trainees in Westerly by 40%.
Westerly Education Center, a unit of the Office of the Postsecondary Commissioner, and the Royce Family Fund, the owner of the facility on Friendship Street in Westerly, together created a plan of action that reconfigured the hands-on training area; added equipment, tools and materials; and converted rooms into classrooms. Electric Boat funded the expansion and outfitting of the facility in 2026, and they were a key donor in 2017 when the facility was built.
“This is a true public-private partnership,” said Dr. Shannon Gilkey, commissioner of postsecondary education in Rhode Island. “Electric Boat has continuously demonstrated its faith in our Westerly training facility by making upgrades and improvements so that the student experience will closely mirror that in their shipyards. The star tables and many of the tools and equipment housed at Westerly Education Center, for example, match those that the trainees will use in their everyday work in Quonset and Groton. It is one of the best examples of government and private industry working together to offer postsecondary training and well-paying jobs that benefit both the individuals and the economy.”
Community College of Rhode Island, a public institution of higher education with a growing workforce division, delivers the curriculum to the Electric Boat trainees. Most courses are five to six weeks in duration and eight hours per day and are offered in two shifts from Monday through Friday. Many of the instructors are retired Electric Boat employees who now serve as mentors and trainers to the next generation of ship-builders enrolled in electrical, high voltage, painting, pipefitting, radiography, rigging, sheetmetal and Shipyard Test Organization courses.
None of the students experienced an interruption to their instruction because the building renovations occurred in a one-week period during Electric Boat’s annual shipyard shutdown. Industrial Transfer and Storage Inc. — who fabricated the submarine hull and star tables — coordinated with Westerly Education Center to implement the reconfiguration and installation plan.
