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YOKOSUKA, Japan (Oct. 2, 2017) – Ship Repair Facility and Japan Regional Maintenance Center (SRF-JRMC) kicked off the 35th apprentice program during an opening ceremony, in which 19 apprentices set out in their new careers, hoping to attain success as journeymen.
Commanding officer Capt. Garrett Farman, deputy commander Capt. David Dwyer, Yokosuka Defense Office chief Yoshinori Wada, and the command’s Navy service members and U.S. and Japanese senior civilian employees welcomed and encouraged the newcomers who are taking the opportunity to become skilled craftsmen.
“I want to point out that you have been selected from a competitive pool of applicants,” Farman said in his address to the new apprentices. “We are pleased and honored that you chose to start your new journey with us, continuing the SRF-JRMC legacy.”
Citing the command’s motto, Wada also joined the ceremony with his remarks, wishing the apprentices luck. “I hope that, in four years, all of you will develop into superb journey-workers and engineers to support the 7th Fleet, encouraging and helping your fellow apprentices with the watchword, ‘nandemo dekimasu’ (‘we can do anything’),” he said
Through four years of training and mentorship from the command’s senior employees, the trainees are expected to develop their expertise in ship repair.
The SRF-JRMC apprentice program was established in 1985. The command realized that, as skilled and experienced shop workers reached the age of retirement, the loss began to negatively impact SRF-JRMC’s workforce. In order to maintain high standards of work quality and accommodate increasingly demanding requirements in ship repair and maintenance, the apprentice program was developed in order to cultivate the command’s tradesmen in their specialties from the beginning of their career.
The apprentices not only gain technical skills through hands-on vocational training from senior shop workers, but also develop themselves by way of general “soft-skills” training to become well-rounded and highly flexible employees.
Seven-hundred and sixty-four apprentices have successfully completed the program to date, some of whom currently hold leadership positions like shop head and foreman.
“I’m looking forward to learning about the work from scratch,” said Kouki Seki, a new general ship mechanic apprentice. “Also, I have a chance to study English. I’m wondering how much I can grow in this type of environment, where I have daily contact with different cultures.”
In the program, it is mandatory for trainees to take English classes in order to acquire an accurate, operational command of the spoken and written language. For the first year, all apprentices will spend four hours every workday studying English, totaling approximately 580 hours of classroom time.
Upon successfully completing one year of the intensive Defense Language Institute curriculum, students will have the opportunity to continue studying in a voluntary course, at their supervisor’s discretion. The supplementary, non-intensive classes meet approximately eight hours per week.
As Farman stressed, learning English is very important to the daily work at SRF-JRMC, as technical documents are written in English. Understanding the language will help the apprentices communicate with the command’s military service members, ship’s force and American civilian workers.
“Before I came here to SRF, I worked on ships,” said Rio Koike, a new marine maintenance apprentice. “That led me to apply for this program. I wanted to work somehow related to ships, and I was looking for a job in Yokosuka where I grew up. With the rest of the apprentice members, I would like to successfully finish this course together!”
| Date Taken: | 10.02.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 02.16.2024 06:09 |
| Story ID: | 464036 |
| Location: | YOKOSUKA, KANAGAWA, JP |
| Web Views: | 26 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, SRF-JRMC welcomes 19 trainees at the 35th apprentice program opening ceremony, by Ryo Isobe, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
