(drumsticks clacking) (bright music) (birds squawking) (tray scraping) - [Henry] I think it's a big part of what we are as a state, having this integral relationship with the ocean.

- [Andrew] You have to be ready to get physical or get dirty.

(shells rattling) - [Michael] I didn't have to leave the state to find an opportunity.

(bright music) (birds squawking) - [Kelly] I was working a dirty, salty job before this, but even I was not fully prepared for how muddy you get.

(bright music) (shells rattling) (hose hissing) - The boat ride in the morning is nice.

I like it.

It's very calm and soothing.

No one's out in the water except you.

We get to the raft and it's time to work, and we just get going.

We just attack the day, and we just keep going and going, and going.

- Most of the time, we're just enjoying ourselves, just working hard and, you know, looking out for each other.

That's very important.

- I've never had a day out here, really, where I'm like watching the clock.

(Pedro laughs) - I just kind of fell in love with the small communities and working waterfronts.

- I guess it wasn't out of the realm of possibility, but I hadn't worked on the ocean before.

- I never thought I would be an oyster farmer.

- I think five-year-old me would think I'm really fricking cool.

(birds squawking) - My name is Christian Brayden.

I'm the project manager for the Maine Aquaculture Association.

My colleague, Carissa Maurin, and I developed the program.

We worked with the Gulf of Maine Research Institute.

There was a formal study that the Maine Aquaculture Workforce Development Strategy that did confirm that we had these shortages, and that an apprenticeship program was the most effective way to address it.

- I am the aquaculture program manager at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute here in Portland.

The apprenticeship program is set apart from someone who's just working on the farm, because we have this schedule of work that outlines different skill sets that they have to have a certain amount of hours in each of those skill sets.

One of the bottlenecks to growth in the industry that was cited the most was having a reliable, skilled workforce for the industry.

We work together with the Maine Aquaculture Association and put together a grant, and got it registered with USDA and the Maine Department of Labor, and we've been running it ever since.

Creating it from scratch, creating a schedule of work for the on-the-job hours, creating the related technical instruction, working with Southern Maine Community College.

- What we try to do is to bring together small businesses who are at the cusp of beginning to scale and young people who are also at the cusp of their careers, and both are willing to kind of take a chance on each other and grow together.

(gentle music) (footsteps tapping) - We started the farm in 2016, but we're still growing.

We're getting more career roles into it, and that's what's awesome about the apprenticeship program.

It's finding those core people, though they might be green, but they're really hungry, they're eager, and just having them grow within our businesses is really proven to be instrumental.

(water sloshing) (crew chattering) - There's no better experience than learning hands on and working from that entry-level position, working on the water.

There's no way to learn better.

So no matter what you want to do in your career after this, you will be better set up because you will understand from the ground up, or from the water up, exactly what's happening, and exactly what needs to be done to improve things.

- It's a great way to utilize a state system that has apprenticeship programs across the board and a community college system that has the expertise and the technical skills.

Why haven't we been doing this all along?

(gentle music) (crew chattering) - It's not glass anymore.

- Apprenticeships have been an important thing since the beginning of time, but they're not always formalized programs like what the Maine Apprenticeship Program does.

Maine Apprenticeship Program was established in the 1940s.

So it's been around for a really long time, but it's one of the best-kept secrets of workforce development in our state.

A registered apprenticeship program has to be at least 2,000 hours, which is approximately a year of on-the-job learning, and then that on-the-job learning curriculum is supported by classroom training that makes sense.

People who are just beginning their careers, people that are in a career and looking to advance it within that same one, or people who are looking to change careers.

Apprenticeship is for everyone.

(gentle music) - [Apprentice 1] Slow down.

- [Apprentice 2] It's okay, man.

(pensive music) (engine purring) - I started oyster farming as a diversification in clam digging.

The farm got to a place where it started to need more and more work.

You have someone who made a 2,000-hour commitment.

They went all in.

And then, you know, after they got through all those 2,000 hours, they completed the program.

They have this experience with that apprenticeship stamp, I think, that employers can have a lot more confidence with they're hiring.

- To be able to have that standard makes everything so much easier.

I've got somebody who's gone through the program and I know what that means.

There's a list of competencies.

It means a lot to farmers, especially those of us that are still scaling.

We still haven't realized the farm that we're gonna be.

So to have help from the Maine Aquaculture Association to take part of this program is wonderful.

(bright rock music) - I began my journey as a commercial lobsterman, and I thought that was my future.

As the years went on, I watched our catch dwindle down, and I think that was the wake-up call.

Maybe there's other opportunities that I can do to get off in the water.

(shells rattling) - I think it's important to, you know, see all aspects of the working waterfront.

I mean that's really what I'm trying to do right now.

I thought this was the best place to take advantage of that and I'd rather not work inside a building all day.

(bright music) (apprentice laughs) (crew chattering) (rope start thunks) (engine revving) If you enjoy commercial fishing, that kind of stuff, I don't see why you wouldn't want to diversify.

(gentle music) (Kelly laughs) - I've definitely spent a lot of time on and around the water, and it's pretty inseparable from who I am as a human.

I was looking to put down roots somewhere, and so I moved to Maine to start the apprenticeship.

It really presented this opportunity to continue working on the water, but be able to go home at the end of the day and have a little bit of a life outside of work.

- It's really exciting to be able to be attracting people who are passionate about aquaculture from other places to come to Maine and build a life here, and build a career here, as well as support individuals who have been living here and want to continue living here, and live and work on the water.

- Come on, guys.

You guys put a... - By studying marine biology, which exposed me to a lot of things, but fisheries was not one of them, so I shipped off to Alaska.

I was a fisheries observer there for three years on groundfish vessels, so I learned a lot about fisheries and management.

I made the move across country.

I wanted to get into aquaculture.

I knew it was kind of a budding industry, so being kind of on the front-end of that was enticing to me.

- The first year, we had six positions available and we had about 28 applicants apply for that.

And the second cohort, we had 10 positions available and we had over 60 applicants from across the nation.

- I am from a town called Wilmette, Illinois, which is just north of Chicago.

- I'm from San Diego, California.

- Chagrin Falls, Ohio.

- From Southern California.

- North Carolina.

- Lincolnville, Maine.

- Camden, Maine.

- Brunswick, Maine.

- Portland, Maine.

- I'm from Chicago.

I spent my summers doing conservation work out west and that kind of sparked a passion for the outdoors and working outside, working with my hands, doing good for the environment, in a sense.

So I applied, got into the internship, ended up at Bangs for a summer.

They informed that we could be a pre-apprentice if we wanted to.

I am glad I did the pre-apprenticeship because that gave me an opportunity to try it before I really dove in and committed to a full yearlong apprenticeship.

So I spent my summer working at Bangs, thought it was awesome, loved it, and then decided I wanted to stay on because it's cool.

It's fun.

I like my coworkers.

And I kind of had this grand idea that aquaculture was like a solution for the world, a food solution, ocean health solution, all sorts of things.

(birds squawking) - I've worked on so many farms since I was, I think 12.

I started working, doing 4-H on a cattle farm in Rockport.

I think it is time to gain another type of farming experience, be outside more.

I really wanted to work on an oyster farm and the internship program was sort of a mechanism to do that.

- Some of my fondest memories are being in or on the water.

Growing up in the Midwest, I've had this idea of the ocean.

I already had my sight set on moving to Maine and then this opportunity just fell into place.

- I didn't actually spend a lot of time on the water until I was probably like in my teens.

My uncle was a commercial fisherman, so I would go out fishing with him occasionally.

I got a gig interning for a scallop farm in Penobscot Bay, and that kind of opened the whole door to the aquaculture industry for me.

I didn't really know what to expect, but I was open to kind of anything and ready just to see what happened, and it worked out for the best, I think.

- I took a gap year and I went up to Alaska, and I was up there doing odd jobs in the fishing industry, and then I eventually got into commercial fishing.

I didn't think I'd be anywhere near oysters.

I came to Maine and I wanted to look for another opportunity.

Ben Hamilton actually saw my boots and asked me if I was a commercial fisherman or if I did anything in the water, and I told him I don't do anything here in Maine currently, but I'd like to.

- How are you today?

- People here are nice.

They're willing to teach you.

They don't get frustrated.

They take the time to actually teach you how to do, basically, anything you need help with.

(bright music) - So it's not just a typical position on the farm because they are getting a really well-rounded experience while they're working on the farm, making them a really skilled worker for the aquaculture industry in Maine.

- Definitely in the first few weeks, it was harder, but now it's like a little second nature.

(shells rattling) - We're good.

- Okay.

- Just keep 'em all there.

- I'd say like getting the job and working in the farm is kind of getting your foot in the door, but I think you can almost imagine the pioneer program is like the automatic door.

They're doing everything they can to support you and make you not just feel like you're going to your job, but like you're part of something, and that you have more of a stake in it, which I think is really cool.

It allows people to kind of really give their all and feel like they're making a difference.

(bright music) - Working on the water, all the nice days are amazing, but there are some tough days where it's snowing, windy, cold, rainy, but you kind of just gotta think about the next day that's gonna be sunny and nice out, or even find the moments that are nice in those crappy weather days and just kind of keep pushing on.

(bright music) (apprentice 1 laughs) - [Apprentice 2] It's definitely type two fun.

Yeah, you're like, your fingers, your toes are freezing out here.

- And it's only as bad as you make it.

I mean it takes more energy to have a bad time than it does to have a good time.

- You gotta know how to layer up and stay warm, and you gotta just embrace it and kind of enjoy the grind of it.

It's not always pretty, it's not always perfect, but you just kind of gotta find a little way to love it.

(apprentice laughs) (bright music) (birds squawking) - You have to train people to be able to take on some of the responsibility so that you can grow your business.

- [Apprentice 1] All right, ready?

I'm gonna send it to you.

- Yeah, serve it up.

- [Apprentice 1] Skittish.

- [Apprentice 2] Got it.

- [Apprentice 1] Got it.

- First thing we do in the apprenticeship program, to get people who have never been on a boat even ready to be working on a farm.

The idea of this program is to be able to get people to move beyond that entry-level role and possibly have middle management or management, or even ownership roles in future farms.

So things like business management and other aspects, really, of running a whole farm are part of the training that is included when you're working on the farm.

- I do think if I wanna stay in aquaculture, then the future would be to start my own farm.

I think that's a ways away and a lot of learning, and stuff like that has to come first, but this definitely sets me up well for having my own farm someday.

I'm meeting other farmers, I'm meeting a lot of people in the industry.

I'm learning about oyster farming even though I'm a mussel farmer.

We also do kelp, which is a great way to supplement income, especially in the winter when things are a little slower.

(water sloshing) (crew chattering) - I had a lot of the farm hand skills, the everyday manual labor, some of the boat skills.

Got those all even more dialed in.

Learning all that and managing all that is something that's given me a lot of skills to take forward in my career.

When I was an apprentice, and Max and Ferdis were teaching me.

- And then they need to heal before they go to the market.

- I kind of saw what I needed to learn and how things worked, and what's the best way to teach people.

When you try to teach someone something, it kind of shows you how to do it better or things you can improve on.

So now I'm trying to pass that knowledge and those skills on to the new people.

- I mean down the hacks, right?

Matt has been amazing.

There's times when I'm not out there and I come out on the farm, and I'll say, "What about this or what about that?"

And Matt will just have all the answers.

It's so valuable to have these apprentices.

(shells rattling) - They don't need handholding, they don't need supervision.

When I started this business, I did not think about how rewarding it would be, how fulfilling it would be to be able to provide opportunity for others.

A job that people really love.

(gentle music) (crew laughing) (crew chattering) - [Apprentice] Look at that.

- A very common trope these days is that young people don't wanna work like they used to.

I've seen exactly the opposite.

I can't get over how passionate a lot of the young folks in Maine are about entering this industry.

- Last season when I was a pre-apprentice, I was told what to do, whereas this season I'm making the plan, I'm making the week schedule.

It's a lot of weight on my shoulders, but it's also very rewarding to be able to talk to our buyers and have buyers put a face to the name, and have that face be mine.

I think that's great.

(bright rock music) (water sloshing) (engine purring) (water splashing) (birds chirping) Allowing folks the opportunity to enter the industry with maybe a lower barrier of entry is essential if we want to grow this industry, especially having it being so young.

Like when I began lobstering, for example, nobody on the wharf looked like me.

It felt like I was up against so many different barriers to join a new industry, which is a whole new breath of life.

There are less barriers of entry and you can really make something for yourself within this industry being of a diverse background.

With commercial fishing, it felt like it was hard to find a place on the waterfront, but with aquaculture, whether you're working on the farm or wanting to start your own farm, it seems like everybody wants to help you be successful because if you're successful, the community is successful.

(engine purring) - I am the first graduated apprentice in the program and being a woman just makes it that much better.

(Kat chuckles) - I wouldn't have necessarily been the person that people picture to kind of hold space in this industry.

I'm here and I'm doing it, and there's a lot of other really badass young women that I'm surrounded by too.

It really matters to be surrounded by people who you identify with and who make you feel confident and capable in yourself.

- Asking for help is not something that I'm strong at, and I think that's because I've been in these situations where perhaps asking for help would seem like a weakness.

But at the farm that I worked at, I was 100% equal as everyone else.

They didn't treat me differently.

They respected my opinion just as much as others and I really appreciate that.

We have all day.

(coworker laughs) - This apprenticeship program is creating access for people who typically haven't had access or haven't felt like they could handle this type of a job.

They didn't think they were strong enough to actually do aquaculture, and then they learn that you don't have to be the strongest person out there, and that you're a team and it's a team effort, and that your skills do grow with that, and I think that's really exciting.

(shells rattling) - Everyone certainly is capable of working hard, no matter what identity.

A lot of people don't have a lot of experience on the water, but that can all be taught, as long as they're willing to work hard and be open-minded.

I think that's huge and that could change somebody's life.

(shells rattling) - The impact of this program has yet to be quantified, and I think it will be much larger than we can even expect.

We are talking about locally farmed seafood, but it's way more than that.

- There's something happening here that's not happening, I guess, in the rest of the country, and that is this kind of movement towards aquaculture and support of aquaculture.

So I think a lot is going to be figured out here in Maine in terms of aquaculture in the next five to 10 years that will have major impacts on a national scale.

Aquaculture is this kind of perfect ecosystem restoration tactic because it has this economic driver that is the seafood industry.

- It's this force that I see moving and getting traction, and it's good for this state.

It's good for the industry.

It's good for the water.

- I think aquaculture is really important for the environment.

The oysters are filtering the water, the seaweed is collecting the carbon from the air and the water, and it's also really important for the people that live near the water too.

It provides jobs, and also, it really kind of shapes the community that it's in.

It's so needed, especially in a world where things are becoming more on screens and through the internet.

I think having an industry that is so hands-on is really important.

- As we grow the farm and as we get better at this, we are becoming more and more attached to the place where we live, and that's a really good feeling.

I think it's really good for young folks, certainly.

- I go to school 3,000 miles away, but I have no doubt in my mind it'll come back to Maine, and I think it's just such a great place.

- I think the thing that excites me most about aquaculture in Maine is the ability for the working waterfront to kind of continue to expand and grow, provides new opportunity for those people to keep working on the water, which I think is something that's very important in Maine.

- Over 90% of the people who are growing kelp already participate in some sort of fishery or other maritime on the water-based business.

And for them, aquaculture is a way to diversify their risk and to diversify their income.

It gives them other opportunities, not only for today, but for the future and for future generations.

(container clacks) - [Apprentice 1] Here you go.

- [Apprentice 2] Thanks.

- I've seen the industry change a lot.

(shells clattering) Gulf of Maine change a lot.

So I hope that young fishermen take advantage of programs like the apprenticeship because it'll be an investment in a longer, more sustainable career.

- It is about letting people take control of their destiny by having a skill set that they can rely on.

- I say, just go for it, because you'll figure it out as you go.

Nobody expects you to be perfect from the get-go.

- My dream has always been aquaculture, and here I am doing aquaculture.

I don't know how I would've found my way into aquaculture without the apprenticeship.

It was an easy step into this world and I'm glad I did it.

I'm glad I'm doing it and I'm gonna keep farming for now.

(gentle music) (birds squawking) - This is our third year with the internship and our first year with the apprenticeship.

The applicants right now that are applying for this all really care about green jobs, sustainability, stewardship of the river.

They're investing us and and we wanna invest back into them.

- Here's a nice-looking oyster.

So there's 200 of oysters in here.

We're trying to look for any oysters that made it through the culling process.

Most of these should be just beautiful, perfect little oysters.

- This is a new workforce that's coming to the state or a new workforce that has been in the state, but is switching to focus on something different.

And by investing in this program, by investing in workforce development, where helping the seafood economy which helps Maine's economy in general.

And so by investing in this, you're investing in a climate-friendly, sustainable local protein source that's going to help feed Mainers, as well as other people across the nation.

- There's a large population in the state of Maine that cares so much about the state of Maine, that this is not just a place, this is a home.

And it is about the iconic landscape of Maine, the brand that we have, the pride we have, and we want to protect our environment.

We want to protect our legacy industries.

We also want people to come here, live here, but if they do, they better treat it right because we've been working really hard to maintain that.

- We really encourage individuals that are interested in aquaculture, who are in commercial fishing in any way, shape, or form to reach out and to apply, and to learn more when they can because it doesn't have to be this or that.

It can be both.

- One of the reasons why the lobster industry has been so sustainable for so many years is because of the apprenticeship program.

If you have an apprenticeship, you train that next generation of ocean stewards.

There's been so much investment into the lobster fishery, and that has been the backbone of the marine economy in Maine for so many years, but this state needs to realize that, yeah, it's changing rapidly.

And if you don't make investments in diversification, it's gonna be catastrophic for the culture.

You need to have the people committed on producing seafood in Maine.

- We've definitely had individuals from the fishing industry come and join the program who have been a deckhand on a lobster boat or have had some type of fishing background in their family, and they see this as an opportunity to diversify and to keep working on the water.

Those skills are completely applicable and transferable to everything that we do in aquaculture.

The fact that they can still work on the water, that they can still continue this family legacy.

- We have this beautiful coastline that a lot of people have relationships with already.

We're talking about increasing food security for Mainers and for the nation in terms of locally produced seafood.

We're talking about creating green jobs for young people.

Maine's working waterfronts are changing and we are trying to tackle that in terms of aquaculture as a tool for climate change resiliency and diversification for marine industries.

There's a lot that's happening here and we are focusing on the young people who are in it, but we are thinking in terms of that long term and knowing that a lot of the work that's being done and the impacts that are being made are meant for Maine's future much farther down the line than we can even see.

(shells clattering) (gentle music) (water babbling) (horn tooting) (water babbling) (bell clanging) (water babbling) (birds squawking) (horn tooting) (bell clanging) (water babbling)