Following its first face-to-face meeting at IBEX last month, the Marine Industry Technical Education Council is off to a running start.

MITEC is an outgrowth of the 2005 Conference of Marine Industry Technical Training held last February in Fort Lauderdale. Since then, the council has established a mission statement, elected officers, created interim by-laws, and established divisions and working committees to develop projects or programs to address the industry’s shortage of skilled workers.

Ed Boncek, director of dealer channel management systems for Sea Ray Boats, was elected MITEC chairman at the IBEX meeting. Joe DeMarco, president of the Association of Marine Technicians, is vice chairman, and Skip Burdon, president of the American Boat & Yacht Council, secretary.

MITEC will catalog industry technical education and training being offered in North America; “provide a coordinating entity for participating industry and educational organizations; set guidelines for marine technical workforce training and certification; develop criteria for and assign continuing marine educational credits to technical courses; develop criteria for and assign continuing marine educational units for approved events; and coordinate and maintain a database management system for educational record keeping, certificate production and transcripts for participants.”

Established divisions include: career awareness and opportunities; professional development; economic resources; workforce development; and organizational administration of MITEC. Working committees under each division have been established, and will be populated by industry and educational institution representatives over the next few months. MITEC’s goal is to have the committees fully populated by the conclusion of COMITT ’06.

“MITEC has a unique opportunity to address a weakness in the recreational marine industry,” Boncek said in a statement. “We are fortunate in the timing of our endeavor as great strides have been made in pulling the industry together under the umbrella of the Grow Boating initiative. Now we must look at also pulling together to grow our technician workforce.”

MITEC will be administratively and financially supported by ABYC, and through contributions made by industry organizations and individuals to the ABYC Foundation for the immediate future. Long-term plans, however, call for MITEC to form its own not-for-profit organization.

MITEC will be discussed at COMITT 2006, scheduled for Jan. 23-24 in Safety Harbor, Fla. Visit www.abycinc.org and click on the COMITT logo for registration information and program updates.