In the 2010s, submarine-maker Electric Boat looked at its coming workforce needs and knew it wasn’t ready to fill them.

Hiring at Electric Boat had slowed after the end of the Cold War. But now a huge project was headed their way: construction of the new Columbia-class nuclear submarines. And the Groton, Connecticut-based firm needed thousands more people.

“There was just a missing generation from when the Cold War ended,” said Courtney Murphy, director of Talent Management at Electric Boat. “We knew we were going to have to change our entire approach to training.”

It also knew that had to start in the local schools.

“Partnering with the schools was going to be really key to elevating the quality of hire that we were going to have,” she said.

Those partnerships became the foundation of the Eastern CT Manufacturing Pipeline, which today trains students to work at several regional manufacturers, including Electric Boat.

One of the pipeline’s training sites, Ella T. Grasso Technical High School in Groton, was the first stop of a Connecticut visit Wednesday by Federal Reserve Bank of Boston President Susan M. Collins and First Vice President Karen Pennell.

Collins and Pennell later toured the Electric Boat facility in Groton. Then, they headed to the Connecticut Business & Industry Association in Hartford to meet with business leaders, where workforce needs were also a hot topic.

Collins says her visits around New England are important because aggregate data can sometimes mask what’s going in a particular region. In Connecticut, she noted, workforce needs were a timely topic because the unemployment rate dropped in the state over the past year, while the U.S. rate rose.

“That speaks to the need for workforce development, for helping manufacturing, other sectors of the economy, really find the kind of talent they need in order for the economy to be able to grow and to thrive,” she said.

“Demand-driven” approach pays off

The Eastern Connecticut Workforce Investment Board helped create the manufacturing pipeline, and its president, Michael Nogelo, said the “demand-driven” approach the initiative adopted has been critical to its success.

“Demand-driven” simply means the training programs at the pipeline’s schools are built around a local employer’s specific job needs. The welding equipment at the Grasso school is even the same equipment used at Electric Boat.

The companies also interview and accept the students into the programs, and a job awaits them when they’re done. That is a huge incentive to do well, said Chris Jewell, president of pipeline participant Collins & Jewell, a custom fabricator and industrial installer in Bozrah.

“This training is not just kind of a wing and a prayer,” he said. “They know there’s a good result at the end of the day.”

State Sen. Cathy Osten said eastern Connecticut was built on manufacturing but became “distressed and depressed” when manufacturing declined. Efforts like the pipeline have had a huge impact at a relatively low cost, she said.

“It has made a difference in thousands of lives,” Osten said.

Help wanted: Companies say finding workers a major challenge

Workforce issues were also discussed at the afternoon roundtable at the Connecticut Business & Industry Association. Executives there spoke about wage inflation and how the region’s high cost of living impacts employees. But a foundational concern was just being able to find enough workers.

Brian Montanari, CEO of aerospace industry manufacturer HABCO in Glastonbury, said his company is exploring ways automation and AI can fill labor gaps his company is anticipating.

“We have some decent visibility into where the business is going, but I don’t have the ability to scale people at the same level as the business is going to scale,” he said.

Marietta Lee, CEO of The Lee Company, a fluid control technology firm in Westbrook, said her company has considered opening a plant down South because of its relative abundance of skilled labor. She said her company is losing people and struggling to replace them.

“Yesterday, I went to three retirement parties,” she said. “Not only are we losing a very skilled employee, we’re losing years of sort of tribal knowledge.”

Paul Mounds, a vice president at Yale New Haven Health, said jobs are also available at his employer, as competition for workers at health care facilities is fierce. His organization is starting to devise ways to partner with community colleges and public schools – as early as the middle school level – so the schools can become workforce feeders.

“We have to do it ourselves, we really do,” he said. “If we don’t take an initiative, then we’re going to still be in same situation that we’re in today.”