Short of workers, WSF tells students about career opportunities

Teenagers stood quietly on the passenger deck of the Kennewick, listening intently to a man not much older than them. They were receiving career advice — and a glance down a path they may not have considered possible.

“You don’t have to go to school to get where I am,” said Bud Fielder, able-seaman-to-mate program manager at the Washington State Ferries.

Over 100 students visited the ferry maintenance facility in Eagle Harbor on Bainbridge Island for the second annual WSF Career Day. Deckhands, captains, engineers, leadership, mates, terminal managers, administrators and more took visitors behind the scenes with the hope that at least a few would sign on.

Most students were bused in from high schools all around Puget Sound, including Bainbridge, North Kitsap, South Kitsap, Enumclaw, North Mason and Lincoln, but a few came from specialized programs. WSF scouts its future workforce from the Seattle Maritime Academy and Maritime High School in Des Moines, both of which prime students for careers in marine science, oceanography, engineering and maritime management.

Washington’s maritime industry is the third-largest economic sector in the state, but a large portion of its workforce is nearing retirement. Economic officials predict that about 150,000 roles throughout the industry will be vacant by 2025.

While WSF has recruited dozens of employees the last few years, it’s still just under its target staffing levels for deckhands and engineers, and many senior staff are expected to retire. The agency stated last November that it must hire 60 entry-level deckhands and 36 able seamen every year — in perpetuity — in order to restore vessel service to an 18-boat fleet by 2025.

“Staffing is our biggest challenge, but it’s also our easiest to solve. I’m confident that this time next year, we’ll be less stressed about re-staffing,” said Steve Nevey, head of ferries. “Hiring for entry-level jobs is not an issue — it’s finding staff for the qualified positions.”

Seniority aside, it takes about 3 1/2 years of training an on-deck employee to qualify for captain; 8 1/2 years to a role as chief engineer; and about a year to qualify as an on-land terminal manager. Additionally, all deck staff must be trained in firefighting and emergency medical treatment.

To incentivize would-be sailors, WSF has implemented some changes to its hiring process — for starters, offering a $45,000 scholarship to apprentices at the Maritime Institute and a $200 stipend for each day of training aboard a WSF vessel, paid for with a $12 million state grant.

WSF public information officer Ian Sterling said the industry worldwide needs workers. “The industry as a whole hasn’t done a great job of advertising, so we’re sitting behind in recruitment,” he said. “This area has become such a tech-heavy region that people don’t realize that the trades are here as well.”

During COVID, many high schoolers were forced to reevaluate their post-graduation goals. Nationally, four-year college enrollment fell and vocational training at community colleges boomed. 2024 was the first year that college enrollment began to return to pre-pandemic levels, but the trades still hold strong appeal.

Kent-Meridian High School students Jack Carrieds and Alex Arians said that while they had family members who were in the trades — what they called “dirty jobs” — they didn’t realize that they could make a comfortable living that way.

“I’m a welder, and I love it, but I didn’t consider it a career option,” Carrieds said. “My dad didn’t get all this guidance […] There’s just so many different jobs you can do with the ferries.”

Arians agreed but said that he wasn’t likely to apply at WSF. He noted that there were upsides and downsides to the ferry recruitment process — namely, the arduous training and more- competitive salaries elsewhere in the industry, like on cruise ships or oil rigs.

Chris Blasko, chief engineer for the Sealth, said that it’s not uncommon for WSF to lose sailors to contract work offshore. Blasko himself started with the ferry system in 1982, worked for 23 years, then pursued other roles both on- and offshore for about a decade before returning to WSF in 2016.

“Guys will leave here to go make more money for six months, but it’s a timestamp,” he said. The paycheck notwithstanding, offshore work can be an undesirable option for mariners seeking a stable home life, he added.

That’s part of what brought Blasko back to the agency. “This is a family […] I came back to the ferry system because of the camaraderie and the schedule. It’s just a warm, fun place to be,” he said.

Even if some kids didn’t bite this time, there’s a transfer of knowledge between maritime roles, Sterling said. If they go on to a career in the maritime industry, the skills they learn on-ship working for a private company can be applicable to a multitude of similar roles in WSF; it’s just a matter of making the positions known to applicants. But, “the earlier you can reach people, the better,” he said.