Bill Frederick of York County Community College's Sanford Instructional Site talks about how students and trainees begin their education at the facility on simpler machines during a news conference on Friday, March 1, 2024 in Sanford, Maine. The instructional facility, which helps train students and workers for jobs at Pratt & Whitney, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and Bath Iron Works, is going to expand their facility to add a welding lab and expand their manufacturing and trades programs. ( Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald via AP)
David Daigler, president of the Maine Community College System, announces the formation of the Maine Defense Industry Alliance during a news conference at the York County Community College Instructional facility in Sanford, Maine, on Friday, March 1, 2024. The alliance is formed between Maine educational institutions, Bath Iron Works, Pratt & Whitney and Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and the Department of Defense to develop a workforce development system to address an estimated need of 7,500 new workers in Maine's defense industry over the next five years. (Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald via AP)
FILE - The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is seen, Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2021, in Kittery, Maine. Americans lament the lack of good-paying manufacturing jobs, but defense contractors are having trouble filling the ones that still exist in Maine. Defense contractors, community colleges and universities, the U.S. Navy and others announced an alliance Friday, March 1, 2024 to accelerate workforce training to help prepare thousands of workers for defense jobs like those at Pratt & Whitney, which makes jet engines for the F-35 fighter; Navy shipbuilder Bath Iron Works; and government-owned Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, which overhauls nuclear submarines. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)
Nickolas Guertin, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition, speaks during a news conference held to announce the formation of the Maine Defense Industry Alliance at the York County Community College Instructional facility in Sanford, Maine, on Friday, March 1, 2024. The alliance is formed between Maine educational institutions, Bath Iron Works, Pratt & Whitney and Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and the Department of Defense to develop a workforce development system to address an estimated need of 7,500 new workers in Maine's defense industry over the next five years. (Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald via AP)