The stove in the galley in Bucksport went up in flames yet again Friday.
As propane-powered flames shot along the walls, a small crew of Navy trainees pulled a fire hose through the darkness of a simulated ship to extinguish it.
This model of a commercial vessel’s kitchen area is one of several in a four-story structure at Maine Maritime Academy’s continuing education center in Bucksport that draws seasoned mariners and undergraduate students to the former Verso paper mill site.
Seven years since the Castine school bought the mill’s former administration and training building, its satellite campus has added this training facility and a growing number of courses that are starting to branch out beyond mariners into training for other industries. The Center for Professional Mariner Development is the first — and so far only — major reuse of the mostly empty mill site almost a dozen years since the paper company left town.
While it doesn’t approach replacing the 570 jobs lost with the mill — or the numbers promised by the unrealized fish farm whose developers still own most of the site — it is bringing some promised economic activity to town and showing an example of successful repurposing.
“I dream about it every night,” director Tim Achorn said of the site’s potential. “Sometimes I wake up with a headache, and sometimes I wake up with a smile.”
The academy, which primarily prepares students for careers as merchant mariners, bought the property in Bucksport for about $3.2 million in 2019, according to state tax documents. It aimed to draw 2,000 students to town annually by 2025, and eventually up to 2,400, the Bangor Daily News previously reported.
An academy spokesperson wasn’t able to provide current student numbers before press time.
Fire training alone brings about 120 adult mariners and up to 250 undergraduates a year, according to center staff. Anyone working on a commercial vessel needs a set of basic training that includes fire response, and professionals need to re-up their certifications every five years or if more than a year has passed since they last worked on a vessel.
The exact impact the facility is having on Bucksport itself is hard to quantify, though Achorn said adult attendees stay in the town’s two hotels and he encourages them to patronize local restaurants. Fire training starts with a classroom portion, followed by water rescue exercises and then small teams cycling through the burn facility guided by instructors.
The facility has had a “positive impact” on Bucksport, according to its economic and community development director, Rich Rotella, though he doesn’t collect specific numbers.
“It’s definitely been a supportive relationship both economically for the local businesses, but also for providing training for our personnel,” he said, referencing a recent public safety training in the facility’s classroom space.
Cory LaForge, who opened Salsa Shack on Main Street last December, said he’s “definitely” noticed an increase in MMA students stopping in his restaurant this school year, though he’s not sure whether that’s completely due to the Bucksport site.
“But there is no doubt that it brings in more business for us and the surrounding restaurants and businesses,” he said of the local campus.
Academy officials also previously said they aimed to use revenue there to help fund scholarships, and would train other first responders.
Construction of the fire training facility was delayed by the pandemic and finished in late 2023.
Last month, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration named it a “center of excellence” for domestic maritime workforce training and education. It was one of 16 institutions recognized amid a national expansion naming such centers at 48 institutions, the academy said in a news release. MMA has another continuing education campus in Brunswick.
Lisa Burton, fire training manager, and Achorn see room to expand offerings there — if they can get the funding and manpower.
First, Burton wants to offer training for municipal fire departments that also respond to maritime calls. That could cover Belfast’s tugboats and Bucksport’s oil tankers, but is also important for waterfronts that draw large yachts, like Castine, and cruise ships, such as Bangor, Bar Harbor and Bucksport.
Fighting fires on vessels is significantly different from on land for many reasons, Burton said. Keeping a vessel stable if responders spray water on it, differing radio communications, and unique challenges in managing ventilation are some factors particular to fighting fires on ships, she said.
She’s had conversations about these trainings, but an expansion is currently limited by available staff time.
The burn facility is focused on maritime applications but can also be used for land-based training, she added, such as local departments training with a ladder truck or practicing how to rescue people in confined spaces.
In about two years, its programs have gone from being partly filled to consistently waitlisted, according to Burton.
The center is also expanding hybrid offerings, letting mariners attend the classroom portion of trainings online. The more the campus can offer both in Bucksport and online, the less mariners have to travel with their limited time on shore, leaders said.
Overall, it currently holds 33 credentialed courses and 14 other vocational classes.
Around 40-45% of fire training attendees are alumni, but others have come from around the world, Achorn said, often drawn by word of mouth to the facility’s quality. Short of large structures in New York and Fort Lauderdale that replicate entire vessels, the Bucksport “trainer” is the best option available, he said.
Inside the two-story center, classrooms and numerous simulator spaces train for complex industry skills.
Two more simulators Achorn hopes to have online by the end of the year, focused on offshore wind, will provide training on a vessel’s control bridge, or command center, and on dynamic positioning systems, which keep ships in place during delicate maneuvers such as working on turbines.
These systems are also used for other applications aside from offshore wind. The simulators are funded by a grant shared with Northern Maine Community College.
In another classroom, a diagram tacked to the wall shows an additional engine room simulator Achorn hopes to have one day.
He’s working to develop yet another simulator for electricians, which could also apply to onshore work, and hopes to have it operating by the end of the year.
Industry partnerships are a major path forward to fund technical expansions like these, Achorn said.
There’s still more room to build in Bucksport, too; Achorn dreams of another building and more programs, though all of it hinges on finding funding.
“Expansion is the way of the future here,” he said.
