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V O L . X X V I I I N O. X X I X D E C E M B E R 1 2 , 2 0 2 2 12 M A N U FAC T U R I N G As part of BIW's efforts to attract more mechan- ics, it raised the starting salary for those jobs to $23.50 an hour in April, up from $16.94 previously. Since most mechanics qualify for two proficiency raises a year, the salary grows quickly from the starting pay. BIW recruits mainly within Maine after efforts to attract people from elsewhere fell flat. "We were recruiting out of state," Steen says, "but they're hard to keep because of the lack of affordable housing in Maine, so we've gone back to mainly recruiting in-state." e company uses various channels for doing so, including holding drive-through hiring events at empty fairgrounds in 2021, according to Allyson Coombs, BIW's director of human resources ser- vices. While BIW worked with a national recruiter during last year's hiring push, it does most of its recruiting in-house, she says. "We spend a lot of time in the community, and our employees spend a lot of time in the com- munity," Coombs says. "We've got 7,000 recruit- ers telling the story of BIW." e firm also relies on partnerships with community colleges and an apprenticeship program in conjunction with the Maine Maritime Academy that started in 1989. rough a pilot program set to launch next year, the company aims to reach an even younger demographic, via a mobile welding lab to give high schoolers a taste of that trade. "We will also be exposing students to different opportunities in the trades as well as in design and engineering at an earlier stage when they are consider- ing career and educational options," Coombs adds. Steen's outlook for 2023: "We expect hiring for manufacturing will continue to be challenging for the foreseeable future, especially for experienced trades- people. As we secure additional contracts, we will also be seeking to expand our engineering ranks." Puritan's push in Piscataquis County Puritan Medical Products Co., the Guilford-based swab maker that ramped up during the pandemic and expanded to Tennessee, is also very much in hiring mode. e company is currently seeking to fill 50 operations jobs at its three factories, the majority in Guilford. Bob Shultz, Puritan's president and CFO who joined the company in April after 16 years at 3M, has found rural Maine to be difficult ground for recruiting workers. Since it's hard to attract candidates from south- ern Maine, the company focuses its efforts on attracting people who live within 45 minutes to an hour from its sites. "e pool of candidates particularly in Piscataquis County is smaller than other parts of the state — you have a limited pool up there," he says. Like many of its peers, the company has raised pay and paid time off, in part so that people who get sick don't have to use vaca- tion time, and advertises in radio, print, online and even on signs along country roads. Some of those efforts are actually luring former employees to reapply, which Shultz says "tells us that we've made some changes that are resonating and pointing us in the right direction." » C O N T I N U E D F RO M P R E V I O U S PA G E P H O T O / F R E D F I E L D P H O T O / C O U R T E S Y O F P U R I TA N Ray Steen, vice president of human resources at Bath Iron Works, says the General Dynamics-owned defense contractor raised the starting salary for mechanics in April to $23.50 an hour from $16.94. Puritan Medical Products Co. is working to fill 50 operations positions at its three factories. F O C U S

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