Conclusion

The watermen who live and work along the coastline of the Chesapeake Bay are facing headwinds in their industry. The graying of the industry, regulation and environmental factors are all contributing toward a shrinking of their workforce. As these pressures mount, watermen and marine industry workforce experts have been working toward additional employment options to help watermen supplement their income or pursue alternative occupations entirely.

The occupations range from work in the marine trades, including maintenance on recreational boats, to watermen tourism programs to oyster aquaculture. Programs, usually structured as a partnership between watermen and government or community colleges, exist to support each of these industries that can help watermen transition. While quantitative data determining the success of these programs remain limited, there are qualitative metrics indicating that these options may be promising. Interviews with industry experts in the marine trades reveal that the potential for watermen to transfer their skills to a profession in the marine trades is largely unexplored. Watermen tourism programs in both Virginia and Maryland are already providing additional income to watermen around the Bay who are participating in the programs. Oyster aquaculture, similar to marine trades occupations, may be an area with a high degree of skills transference for watermen while also being an area that has seen increased activity in recent years. As each of these additional employment options continues to be explored, the industries would do well to capture and analyze quantitative metrics that can help gauge the success and efficacy of the programs as well as interest from the watermen of the Chesapeake Bay.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Jorge Holzer of the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Maryland, Paula Jasinski of Chesapeake Environmental Communications, Wendy Larimer of the Association of Marine Industries, Doug Lipton of NOAA Fisheries, Tom Murray of the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences and Susan Zellers of the Marine Trades Association of Maryland for their helpful comments; and to Aaron Steelman, Shannon McKay and Sandy Tormoen for their careful review.