On September 25, a Chinese intercontinental ballistic missile passed high over the small South Pacific island and U.S. territory of Guam in a People’s Liberation Army test, triggering agitation on the island as to whether U.S. military detection and anti-missile defenses are adequate there as the island re-emerges as a major U.S. military and logistics hub.
As geopolitical tensions between the United States and China rise, the U.S. in December will start redeploying 5,000 U.S. Marines from Okinawa, Japan, to this 30-by-nine-mile island, starting with 100 Marines in December and continuing over several subsequent years.
Guam’s increasing military role is having significant implications for its sole public two-year college, Guam Community College (GCC).
The long and short history
Located 5,975 miles from California and just 2,952 miles from China, Guam is no newcomer to supporting the U.S. military. During World War II, the island was seized and occupied by Japan days after the Pearl Harbor attack before U.S. troops reasserted control in 1944.
Later, U.S. military bases on Guam were removed, and military ties receded as the U.S. defense industry refocused logistical reliance upon a vast global supply chain. But stresses to that supply chain became increasingly obvious during Covid as foreign ports closed and turned away U.S. Navy ships, and due to ongoing political vulnerabilities — such as Japanese opposition to a U.S. military base on Okinawa — leading to a U.S. military emphasis on re-establishing a more permanent and resilient military presence and source of defense labor.
“The deployment of the Marines from Okinawa to Guam has significantly increased the interest in providing educational opportunities for Guam residents to participate in that build-up,” says GCC President Mary Okada, who has headed the institution since 2007. “In addition to a lot of construction over the past several years, what we anticipate post-construction is that they will be letting out a lot of the service contracts to support the facilities and air conditioning units and the like. We have been seeing some requests for recruitment.”
Wanted: More skilled workers
In part reflecting the military expansion, over the past several years, two shipbuilders/ship repairers on Guam have boosted operations, and a third has launched operations, to service existing naval and supply vessels and build new ones.
The presence of more Marines on Guam will also stimulate the economy and grow demand for programs to help serve those needs, by, for example, driving the need for construction workers, Okada says.
“The [Marines] base is diverting all the construction workers onto the base – in fact, housing and general construction costs have gone up significantly on the island because of that demand,” Okada says. “There’s not enough workers, so there’s tremendous demand for skilled construction workers.”
Standing up boot camps
Looking to train employees rapidly, GCC has responded by expanding short-term certificate boot camps in disciplines such as ship repair, construction, truck driving and bus driving, CNA training, cyber security training and home healthcare. Since 2019, for example, 196 GCC students have enrolled in, and 169 have completed, ship repair boot camps. GCC also has 85 students enrolled in, with 64 completing, a similar construction boot camp. These are significant numbers for a small island with a population of 169,000.
In August, shipyard Cabras Marine Corp. and GCC completed a 12th Ship Repair Boot Camp where college faculty trained 19 participants over 12 weeks, providing them with hands-on experience and essential skills in ship repair. Since 2021, the 12 boot camps have trained nearly 200 Cabras employees in various disciplines, including welding, pipefitting, electrical work and carpentry.
These efforts aim to address the critical gap and growing demand for skilled labor in the ship repair industry on Guam, as well as the fact that veteran shipbuilders had largely retired since the closure of Guam’s military ship repair facility, says Krystle Merfalen, chief operating officer of Cabras, which has nearly 300 total employees.
Most graduates of the program — which is free to participants given funding from Guam’s Department of Labor — are hired by Cabras as apprentices and start earning $17.50 per hour, nearly double the Guam island minimum wage of $9.25, and then rapidly progress to the prevailing wage for a given profession, Merfalen notes. That is a boon to graduates who face high island-living costs that approach those of Hawaii, she says.
A lynchpin
GCC’s participation is vital to Cabras, Merfalen continues.
“Without Mary Okada and her team, we wouldn’t have been able to push out 12 boot camps,” Merfalen says. “Sometimes when we’re not ready, they’re ready and we’re like, ‘Okay, let’s put another cycle through.’ So they’re definitely invested in this industry and growing it, and they’ve been a very staunch advocate of this program.”
Merfalen says Cabras is also exploring possible internships for GCC students in professional positions such as contracting and finance and possible engineering and mariner training programs.
GCC has received U.S. Department of Interior funding to support the boot camps, Okada says. In August, GCC received a $75,000 grant to support the ship repair boot camps from a foundation associated with the rock band Metallica as part of a national Metallica Scholarship Initiative managed by the American Association of Community Colleges.
Diversification of employees
The overall revival of Guam as a major military services hub is also driving demand for higher-level employees and specialists in areas such as cybersecurity. And there have been discussions about creating new programs for airplane mechanics and unmanned aircraft systems, and possibly a program for minor submarine repairs so vessels don’t have to travel to Hawaii for them, says John Dela Rosa, GCC’s assistant director of communications and promotions.
Guam’s leaders have been encouraging new industries on the island in an effort to rebound from the effects of Covid and to diversify the economy from its two lead sectors: tourism and military. Some of those areas include additive manufacturing, aquaculture, agriculture and telecommunications. Those are areas GCC can help with, too.
In August, GCC began piloting a new free education model for certain in-demand programs, including four different areas that have consistently seen requests for more employees: education, construction, accounting and IT. Under the program, students can receive two-year associate degrees or one or more certificates, so long as they have not yet received a bachelor’s degree.
“This is something that has been requested from many of our business partners, especially in telecommunications,” Okada says.
The school is piloting the program with 27 students but plans to expand to 80 students by fall 2025.
