Blue Collar 101: Commercial Fishing and the Maritime Trades
FREE to the Public
REGISTRATION REQUIRED
What actually happens to keep our coastal waters, working waterfronts, and marine supply chains running every single day? Who navigates the commercial fishing vessels, maintains our complex marine infrastructure, builds our heavy waterfront structures, and trains the next generation of maritime leaders?
For the fourth session of Blue Collar 101, we're bringing together workers and industry experts from across the Commonwealth's commercial fishing and maritime sector. Representatives from the commercial fishing industry, maritime higher education, marine trade associations, and heavy marine construction will walk us through what the job actually looks like: the operational mechanics, the rigorous safety protocols, the seasonal demands, and the career pathways into this vital ocean workforce.
This is a panel conversation for the general public and those curious about the skilled labor that keeps our coastal infrastructure functioning. Expect honest, ground-level discussion about what it means to work on waters that demand absolute respect, how the trade is passed down, and what most land-dwellers never see because it happens miles offshore, along the docks, and beneath the surface. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, alongside public agencies, unions, and educational institutions, is prioritizing the importance and future of our industrial labor force.
Blue Collar 101 is a public education series based at the Charles River Museum of Industry & Innovation. At a moment when conversations about workforce development and the future of work often happen without workers in the room, this program starts from a different premise: the people who build, maintain, and repair the physical world are experts, and their knowledge deserves a public platform.
This is part of a recurring series of events, each spotlighting a different trade or type of industrial work, including those that keep our electrical grid powered, water flowing, transit systems running on time, and our modern world functioning around us.
Mill Talks at the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation are free and open to the public and are made possible by the generous support of the Lowell Institute.
