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40 Years of Tech. Ed.
By Seth Koenig, Times Record Staff
BATH — For reference, at least two of the area schools that sent students to Bath’s vocational center 40 years ago are no longer in operation.
Tonight, during evening meetings of the Bath Regional Career and Technical Center’s program advisory committees, the institution will celebrate four decades of trades education in the City of Ships.
Among those scheduled to speak at the 5 p.m. gathering is Don Friend, who was tapped to launch the city’s vocational school in 1969 and served as its director for 20 years.
“When I started up these programs and began doing the paperwork, some of the schools I was dealing with at that time don’t even exist any more,” said Friend. “We had kids coming from South Bristol High School and Bridge Academy in Dresden.
“The federal government had come out with a lot of money for vocational education at the time, so the (Maine Department of Education) sent out feelers to determine which towns were interested in building vocational schools,” Friend continued. “We had to go through all the paperwork to come up with the programs, produce studies, come up with a plan for a building, equipment, teachers and what have you. I wrote up that proposal — we were the third or fourth one in the state. A lot of others started up after the fact.”
Now, 20 years after Friend retired from the vocational school post, he still occasionally offers a hand in carpentry instructor Tony Trippi’s classes. But that’s not the only place he sees students of the center.
“I would guess about half the contractors in this area came out of this program,” he said. “There are many carpenters in the area, a lot of the electricians and some of the plumbers. Our drafting program was really set up to meet the needs of Bath Iron Works, and probably 75 percent or 80 percent of the students who graduated from there ended up working at BIW. The three or four times I’ve had emergencies at the hospital, I’ve run into students that were in our CNA program and have gone on to become nurses. When I travel around I see the results of what happened at the vocational school and it’s gratifying to me.”
Today, the role and reputation of the institution has changed somewhat — even the name is different, switching from the “Bath Regional Vocational Center” to the “Bath Regional Career and Technical Center” starting last spring.
“When they opened this facility, they had 550 or 600 students attending,” said Joel Austin, the center’s current director. “It was a big program. It was 1970, when there was an expectation that kids would learn trades. There wasn’t necessarily an expectation that kids would go on to college. There was an expectation that they’d leave high school and join Bath Iron Works or the work force.”
Now, the center has approximately 220 students — about 13 percent of the student populations of the high schools that feed its programs.
Those schools include the neighboring Morse High School, Boothbay Region High School, Lincoln Academy and Wiscasset High School.
Many of the center’s programs are holdovers from Friend’s day, including carpentry and the automotive department. Other programs are newer, such as the pre-kindergarten education training and computer technology.
One thing that the center’s supporters are happy to see subsiding, though, is the stigma that once applied to the vocational programs. Friend said he long battled the notion that only kids who weren’t “smart enough” to succeed in traditional academic classrooms would gravitate toward the vocational school.
Allison Sweeney, a senior in BRCTC’s culinary arts program, was caught off guard by a question about whether a stigma follows students who attend the center.
“For most of my classmates, it’s not like, ‘Oh, that’s for slow people.’ It’s like ‘Oh my gosh, I wish I would’ve taken that opportunity,’” said Sweeney, the president of the center’s SkillsUSA competition club. “With the culinary arts institutions I’m considering, they say, ‘Congratulations for taking part in that.’ It’s not for slow people, it’s learning a trade before you go out. It’s preparing for a good job or good school.”
MacKenzie Arrington can speak from experience. He graduated from Boothbay Region High School in 2005 after spending two years in the culinary arts program at the Bath technical center. Last week, he graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. On Friday, he’ll be one of three culinary artists competing for the title of Maine Lobster Chef of the Year in a ballyhooed contest in Portland.
“As for the stereotype of vocational schools, I’ve never been a dull kid, and I chose to go into the vocational school,” Arrington said Tuesday afternoon in a telephone interview. “For the culinary school I just graduated from, you really needed two years of experience to go into it. You could tell which students had less than six months of experience or hadn’t been to a vocational school. They were clearly behind.
“I personally think the stereotype has really flip-flopped,” he continued. “Vocational schools are really necessary to improve yourself and get ahead, whether you’re trying to get into the work force or college.”
In Arrington’s case, the trades education benefited him in college and the work force. Since graduating from the Culinary Institute of America, he has had the luxury of cherry-picking from an array of job offers, turning down positions in several Portland restaurants in favor of the lavish Round Hill Country Club in Greenwich, Conn.
Whether it’s for a student who’s grown disinterested in the traditional classroom setting or a student aiming to get ahead before plunging into the post-secondary school world, Austin said his center remains ready to help, just like when it opened in 1969.
“We’ll provide these kinds of educational opportunities, just like we always have,” he said.
skoenig@timesrecord.com
Tonight, during evening meetings of the Bath Regional Career and Technical Center’s program advisory committees, the institution will celebrate four decades of trades education in the City of Ships.
Among those scheduled to speak at the 5 p.m. gathering is Don Friend, who was tapped to launch the city’s vocational school in 1969 and served as its director for 20 years.
“When I started up these programs and began doing the paperwork, some of the schools I was dealing with at that time don’t even exist any more,” said Friend. “We had kids coming from South Bristol High School and Bridge Academy in Dresden.
“The federal government had come out with a lot of money for vocational education at the time, so the (Maine Department of Education) sent out feelers to determine which towns were interested in building vocational schools,” Friend continued. “We had to go through all the paperwork to come up with the programs, produce studies, come up with a plan for a building, equipment, teachers and what have you. I wrote up that proposal — we were the third or fourth one in the state. A lot of others started up after the fact.”
Now, 20 years after Friend retired from the vocational school post, he still occasionally offers a hand in carpentry instructor Tony Trippi’s classes. But that’s not the only place he sees students of the center.
“I would guess about half the contractors in this area came out of this program,” he said. “There are many carpenters in the area, a lot of the electricians and some of the plumbers. Our drafting program was really set up to meet the needs of Bath Iron Works, and probably 75 percent or 80 percent of the students who graduated from there ended up working at BIW. The three or four times I’ve had emergencies at the hospital, I’ve run into students that were in our CNA program and have gone on to become nurses. When I travel around I see the results of what happened at the vocational school and it’s gratifying to me.”
Today, the role and reputation of the institution has changed somewhat — even the name is different, switching from the “Bath Regional Vocational Center” to the “Bath Regional Career and Technical Center” starting last spring.
“When they opened this facility, they had 550 or 600 students attending,” said Joel Austin, the center’s current director. “It was a big program. It was 1970, when there was an expectation that kids would learn trades. There wasn’t necessarily an expectation that kids would go on to college. There was an expectation that they’d leave high school and join Bath Iron Works or the work force.”
Now, the center has approximately 220 students — about 13 percent of the student populations of the high schools that feed its programs.
Those schools include the neighboring Morse High School, Boothbay Region High School, Lincoln Academy and Wiscasset High School.
Many of the center’s programs are holdovers from Friend’s day, including carpentry and the automotive department. Other programs are newer, such as the pre-kindergarten education training and computer technology.
One thing that the center’s supporters are happy to see subsiding, though, is the stigma that once applied to the vocational programs. Friend said he long battled the notion that only kids who weren’t “smart enough” to succeed in traditional academic classrooms would gravitate toward the vocational school.
Allison Sweeney, a senior in BRCTC’s culinary arts program, was caught off guard by a question about whether a stigma follows students who attend the center.
“For most of my classmates, it’s not like, ‘Oh, that’s for slow people.’ It’s like ‘Oh my gosh, I wish I would’ve taken that opportunity,’” said Sweeney, the president of the center’s SkillsUSA competition club. “With the culinary arts institutions I’m considering, they say, ‘Congratulations for taking part in that.’ It’s not for slow people, it’s learning a trade before you go out. It’s preparing for a good job or good school.”
MacKenzie Arrington can speak from experience. He graduated from Boothbay Region High School in 2005 after spending two years in the culinary arts program at the Bath technical center. Last week, he graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. On Friday, he’ll be one of three culinary artists competing for the title of Maine Lobster Chef of the Year in a ballyhooed contest in Portland.
“As for the stereotype of vocational schools, I’ve never been a dull kid, and I chose to go into the vocational school,” Arrington said Tuesday afternoon in a telephone interview. “For the culinary school I just graduated from, you really needed two years of experience to go into it. You could tell which students had less than six months of experience or hadn’t been to a vocational school. They were clearly behind.
“I personally think the stereotype has really flip-flopped,” he continued. “Vocational schools are really necessary to improve yourself and get ahead, whether you’re trying to get into the work force or college.”
In Arrington’s case, the trades education benefited him in college and the work force. Since graduating from the Culinary Institute of America, he has had the luxury of cherry-picking from an array of job offers, turning down positions in several Portland restaurants in favor of the lavish Round Hill Country Club in Greenwich, Conn.
Whether it’s for a student who’s grown disinterested in the traditional classroom setting or a student aiming to get ahead before plunging into the post-secondary school world, Austin said his center remains ready to help, just like when it opened in 1969.
“We’ll provide these kinds of educational opportunities, just like we always have,” he said.
skoenig@timesrecord.com
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