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Veteran patternmaker Brent Rollins and apprentice Kenneth Lucas
Newport News Shipbuilding's Apprentice School began training new patternmakers two years ago after a gap of nearly two decades as the shipyard prepares to build two new classes of submarines for the Navy. Veteran patternmaker Brent Rollins is the craft instructor for the future patternmakers, two of whom started the program with master's degrees. All the apprentices attend college classes and learn the shipyard's "World Class Shipbuilding Curriculum" two days a week in their first year in addition to spending three days on the job with their craft instructors. Rollins said of the apprentices, "It shocked me. They were way smarter than I was thinking they were going to be. With the education they get, they learn pretty quick." Lucas, 25, enrolled already holding two associate's degrees. A knee injury closed off his hopes of becoming a state policeman. Frustrated in his hopes of advancement at a big home improvement company and finding even two degrees weren't enough in a tight job market, he turned to the shipyard where his father had worked. "If I’d have known how good it was, I would have come in here right out of high school," says Lucas.
Veteran patternmaker Brent Rollins and apprentice Kenneth Lucas
Newport News Shipbuilding's Apprentice School began training new patternmakers two years ago after a gap of nearly two decades as the shipyard prepares to build two new classes of submarines for the Navy. Veteran patternmaker Brent Rollins is the craft instructor for the future patternmakers, two of whom started the program with master's degrees. All the apprentices attend college classes and learn the shipyard's "World Class Shipbuilding Curriculum" two days a week in their first year in addition to spending three days on the job with their craft instructors. Rollins said of the apprentices, "It shocked me. They were way smarter than I was thinking they were going to be. With the education they get, they learn pretty quick." Lucas, 25, enrolled already holding two associate's degrees. A knee injury closed off his hopes of becoming a state policeman. Frustrated in his hopes of advancement at a big home improvement company and finding even two degrees weren't enough in a tight job market, he turned to the shipyard where his father had worked. "If I’d have known how good it was, I would have come in here right out of high school," says Lucas.