By DANA TIMS/YachatsNews
During his 28 years in the U. S. Coast Guard Len Tumbarello learned a thing or two about running a tight ship.
Now, in his latest stint as the first maritime program coordinator for a state workforce development agency, he’s off to a fast start in awarding grants to help build long-term, maritime-related jobs across five Oregon counties.
“Most people don’t understand the immensity of the maritime sector in Oregon,” said Tumbarello, who retired from the Coast Guard in 2013 with the rank of captain. “If I asked a high school kid today about the Columbia River, do they really understand that it represents $25 billion a year to the U.S. economy?”
And that’s just the dollars generated by the Northwest’s largest river. The entire maritime sector contributes $25 billion annually to Oregon’s economy.
In his new job as the first maritime program coordinator at Northwest Oregon Works, Tumbarello is charged not only with increasing that awareness, but also with awarding grants to create what the agency says are “repeatable recruiting and training programs to meet sector employee needs.”
That work is now under full sail.
The first grant, totaling $62,500, went to Oregon Coast Community College to hire an additional welding instructor. The position, which will be based at the college’s training site at the Port of Toledo, will increase the number of enrollees receiving shipbuilding and repair certificates by 20 to a total of 68 students.
The second grant, totaling $40,000, was awarded to OoNee Sea Urchin Ranch. The Newport-based business harvests exploding numbers of purple urchins, fattens them up in on-site seawater tanks and, in just a few weeks, sends them out to market as uni – sea urchin roe – a delicacy in many cuisines.
Both awards came just months after Tumbarello assumed his current position in May.
The funding for both grants was made possible by House Bill 3410 passed by the 2023 Oregon Legislature. The bill established a maritime sector program with funding provided by the Higher Education Coordinating Commission to support “strategic investments in workforce development programs,” according to a statement.
The effort is aimed at bolstering a maritime workforce that totaled around 11,300 in 2022, according to an Oregon Employment Department report.
Of those jobs, 1,340 were in Lincoln County, 1,074 in Clatsop County, 231 in Tillamook County, 125 in Columbia County, and 79 in Benton County.
Together, those five counties make up the total area now under Tumbarello’s purview.
A view from the bridge
Tumbarello, who also served as director of the merchant mariner training program at Tongue Point Job Corps Training Center for 11 years after his Coast Guard retirement, describes his approach to his current job this way: “I’m a visionary type guy.”
Noting that the current program expires in June 2025, he added, “A year’s not going to cut it. It’s great that the maritime sector has a seat at the table, but we need to maintain that seat for years to come. We’ll have a lot of success stories, but we have lots and lots more work to do.”
He maintains no “hard and fast rubric scoring” when it comes to considering new grant applications, but instead tries to look at each one to see if it meets program needs.
“First, are these coming from the counties we serve?” he said. “Are they workforce-development focused? Will whatever we’re supporting turn into jobs for people? If so, we want to get those strategic investments out the door as soon as we can.”
Asked about the impact of the maritime sector on Oregon’s economy, Tumbarello returned to the topic of the Columbia River, saying, “I don’t think that most Americans understand that 90 percent of the commodities moving in and out of this country move by water.
“I mean, there are a lot of trucks on the freeway, but they are not carrying anything close to what our boats and ships do.”
The new grants
At Oregon Coast Community College, having only a single welding instructor limited the program’s capacity and extended the time needed to complete courses in areas including shipbuilding and repair, foundational welding skills, wire feed welding and shielded metal arc welding.
“By adding the second instructor, we have been able to really focus on the course offerings in a strategic way to move students forward in completion of the shipbuilding certificates,” said Melissa Batchelor, the college’s associate dean of academic affairs. “It’s really exciting that this extra capacity will open the door to students to move them through and hopefully let them save time in getting into the field faster.”
In addition to the college’s Port of Toledo site, a second welding lab at Taft High School in Lincoln City allows students there to take various classes to speed them toward full certificates.
“This is a skill set that our graduates can take anywhere,” Batchelor said. “We hope they stay on the coast, of course, but if they go elsewhere, they’ll be ready to get very good-paying jobs for years to come.”
Aaron Huang, co-founder and chief executive officer at OoNee Sea Urchin Ranch, is keenly aware of the tremendous damage inflicted by the billions of purple sea urchins destroying habitat-critical kelp forests along the coasts of Oregon and California. Urchins, with dwindling natural predators left, munch the forests clean, leaving vast “urchin barrens,” where the spiny, fist-sized creatures are the only living things for miles.
His business sends divers into the waters off Cape Arago north of Bandon, where urchins proliferate. Divers harvest the creatures, which are often mostly empty given that they have consumed their supply of kelp.
The catch is trucked to Newport, where aqua culturists feed them a proprietary diet to plump them up. A handful of area restaurants are regular customers for the finished product, but Huang said the grant will go a long way toward helping scale up the business.
The $40,000 grant will train and employ:
Two aquaculture operation interns for training on sustainable, land-based recirculating systems with a goal of full-time employment in lead roles over the entire urchin harvesting/processing operations.
Eight interns and part-time employees for training on all processing and shipping operations. Once the sea urchin ranch expands its operations, these interns will be offered full-time employment.
“We’re only local right now,” Huang said. “We have fielded some national inquiries, but we need to grow to do that. We are very hopeful this grant is a step in that direction.”
- Dana Tims is an Oregon freelance writer who contributes regularly to YachatsNews.com. He can be reached at DanaTims24@gmail.com