On a recent morning, cadets at the Great Lakes Maritime Academy in Traverse City, Michigan, were out on Lake Michigan before 8 a.m. 

“We have to make sure our radar works, our depth finder,” said Cadet Bryce Wise-Brown, listing off a few other steps on his checklist. The day’s docking exercise involved steering the tugboat carefully in and out of the bay.

“It's a difficult harbor to make an approach to,” said Cary Godwin, their instructor and captain, as he watched closely behind the cadets. “There's not a lot of room to make a mistake.”

One cadet steered and pulled levers to shift the throttles, and another called out angles for navigation. They’re practicing here to work on tugboats all over the country that push and pull huge cargo barges. 

President Donald Trump’s administration wants to revive the American commercial shipping industry that the cadets are training to enter. Ships in the U.S. fleet — called the U.S. Merchant Marine — make up less than 1% of commercial ships in the world, the country with the most ships is China. To compete, the administration is pouring millions into shipbuilding.

But even if the U.S. expands its fleet, there may not be enough certified mariners to work on those ships. The U.S. fleet already has a hard time filling open positions.  

“The job opportunities for a cadet graduating from a Maritime Academy, any of them, have not been seen since the end of the Vietnam War,” said Jerry Achenbach, who has led the Great Lakes Maritime Academy for fifteen years. 

He said that’s in part because many senior officers retired during the pandemic. “When that happened, everybody moved up quickly,” he said. “All of a sudden you have this real void at the entry-level position.” 

And while the Trump administration has invested millions into building ships, there’s also a need to expand training.

Achenbach said the Department of Transportation did reach out to the school about enrolling more cadets.

“We had to tell them what resources would be needed to add 50 seats to the academy, 100 seats, 150 or 200 seats,” he explained. But so far, extra resources haven’t materialized.

Jim Weakley, of the Lake Carriers’ Association — a Great Lakes shipping lobby — said if the U.S. wants to be more competitive in the shipping industry, it has to train more maritime workers of all kinds. 

“You need mariners to man the ships, and you need shipyards or shipyard workers to build them,” said Weakley. “I think right now we're lacking both capabilities.” 

The Great Lakes Maritime Academy trains around 200 future merchant mariners at a time. The school certifies deck officers and engineers.

In a shallow part of a bay on Lake Michigan, Wise-Brown, the cadet at the helm, watched his depth finder closely. 

“I know if I go anywhere over there, I'm going to ground myself. I'm going to hit the bottom,” he said, “So I'm trying to just keep a steady course.” 

After training here, he’ll have lots of options. There are more than 5,000 tow vessels in the U.S. fleet. Wise-Brown is from New Orleans and hopes to work in Louisiana. 

These grads consistently get jobs in the U.S. Merchant Marine, where the pay could be as much as $100,000 a year. And that’s just in their first year out of school. 

“I plan on making a career out of the maritime industry, so I’m trying to get any and every endorsement the academy offers, and so far, I have,” said Wise-Brown.