After two years participating in an innovative, hands-on maritime program at Baltimore’s Digital Harbor High School, 18-year-old Shawn Walker has a clear vision for his life after graduation.
He’s working to earn four professional certifications that will prepare him for good jobs at the Port of Baltimore, such being a safety inspector or operating a forklift.
Now a high school junior, Walker dreams of one day owning his own trucking company, with a fleet that will get cars, coal and coffee off of cargo ships and into the homes of his neighbors.
“Before I began the maritime program, I couldn’t really see where I wanted to go after high school,” Walker said. “This program is teaching me skills I can use in my everyday life. It is giving me a sense of my future.”
Now in its second year, Digital Harbor High School’s Maritime Transportation & Technology Pathway aims to prepare its 31 students (about a third of whom are female) for careers at the harbor. Some of those jobs pay six-figure salaries.
Exlusive vocational focus
Though it initially focused on seagoing careers, the program’s focus has shifted to portside activities based on student feedback, said Ben Graeff, the former sailor-turned-teacher who operates the Maritime program and created its curriculum.
“We have learned … that most students end up on the shore side of the maritime program,” Graeff said. “A lot of them don’t have the desire to ship out for four months at a time.”
Maritime education is thriving nationwide. The U.S. Department of Transportation website lists 44 public and private schools nationwide with programs aimed at preparing students for seafaring and portside careers. Not surprisingly, most are clustered along the East Coast.
Though there’s a school in St. Mary’s County that trains future naval cadets and an environmentally-based maritime program offered by Baltimore’s Living Classrooms Foundation, Graeff said that Digital Harbor in the only school maritime program in Maryland to provide an exclusively vocational focus.
Digital Harbor’s two-year curriculum delves into subject matter as varied as shipboard chain of command, how goods move overseas from one point to the next, knot-tying, the technology behind offshore wind turbines, and how to operate large ships and small craft such as tugboats.
Next semester, Graeff will introduce a beginning engineering class that will teach students to repair shipboard motors.
Students also can opt for a third year in the Maritime program and serve internships with organizations including the U.S. Coast Guard and Project Liberty Ship, which operates the World War II merchant ship John W. Brown docked in the Inner Harbor.
Junior Scott Adkins, 17, credits his internship with the Downtown Sailing Center and a class field trip aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Eagle that sailed from Annapolis to Baltimore with helping him overcome his lifelong fear of open water.
“We got to see what the workers did on the ship, how they held the sails,” Scott said. “We saw the precautions they took to ensure that everyone was safe. Now, I enjoy being on the water.”
‘A glimpse of the outside world’
He said he said he’s thinking about a military career after high school — possibly with the Coast Guard.
Graeff hadn’t heard Scott say that before, and it lifted the teacher’s spirits. He has ambitions for his students, some of whom come from challenging backgrounds, that aren’t limited to academic goals. Graeff knows how much his own time at sea shaped his worldview.
After graduating from the State University of New York’s Maritime College in 1995, Graeff said he shipped out for five years. He worked on oil tankers, cable-laying ships and car carriers. He traveled up and down the East Coast and visited more than a dozen countries from Central America to Asia.
“I want to give my students a glimpse of the outside world,” he said. “When I was at sea, I loved that every day I woke up looking at a different view. Traveling helped me gain an appreciation for other cultures, and that never got old. I also learned to appreciate more what I had at home.”
Though Digital Harbor’s program is new, the Baltimore City Public School system has operated maritime educational programs in its high schools for nearly a quarter of a century.
In the early years of the 21st century, the school district launched the Baltimore Maritime Industries Academy with the avid support of U.S. Rep. Helen Delich Bentley (previously a Baltimore Sun reporter) and the late U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings.
Graeff said the politicians viewed the Academy as a way of training the young mariners in the careers necessary for sustaining the Port of Baltimore, while also providing stable jobs for city residents. The maritime program later was transferred to the New Era Academy, and in 2022, to Digital Harbor, a magnet school with a focus on information technology.
‘One solid mentor’
Graeff acknowledges that Digital Harbor’s program is “still in its infancy.”
He would eventually like to nearly double the initiative size to about 50 students. He would like to beef up the internship program. He dreams of establishing a robust mentorship system.
“I’d love to match the young men and women in my classroom with people working in the industry who have similar interests and who come from similar backgrounds as my students,” he said, “people who can show them that there is a viable path forward.
“You cannot overestimate the value of one solid mentor in a student’s life,” he said.
Creed Hanson, 17, initially was attracted to the maritime program because as he weighed the pros and cons of a possible future military career. He learned a lot from interacting with Graeff’s contacts in the Coast Guard and U.S. Merchant Marine.
But as Creed listened to the stories of Graeff’s overseas adventures, he also became bitten by the travel bug.
“I have a mind for memorizing facts about random countries,” he said. “China, France, any place you can dream of. It is such a large world. There is so much to explore.”
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