HANDS-ON
LEARNING
IS STILL THE SPECIALTY
For 30 years, The Landing School has been grooming students for marine careers
By Beth Rosenberg / Staff Writer
b.rosenberg@tradeonlytoday.com
The Landing School — an accredited institute
that teaches boatbuilding, yacht design, marine systems and composites courses — commemorates its 30th anniversary this year. The school,
which for three decades has provided a steady stream
of skilled staff into the marine industry, is adding a
two-year associate’s degree program, set to launch
next September.
“I think any school that sticks around [this long]
that isn’t funded publicly or through big endowments
— schools of our type — is unusual,” school president Barry Acker, 61, said in reflecting on the 30th
anniversary. “We’re a lot broader [than other similar
schools]; therefore, we appeal to a much broader collection of students.”
“We’re teaching [students] how to
build boats so they can get entry-level jobs and then work their way
up and move through the company to
positions of higher responsibility
and higher authority.”
— John Burgess, The Landing School
Sttudentts who grraduatte ffrom
The Landiing School iin Arrundell,,
Maiine,, arre consiisttenttlly
prreparred fforr a carreerr
iin the marriine industtrry..
The school was founded in Arundel, Maine, in
1978 by John Burgess and Helen “Cricket” Clark
(now Clark Tupper) with nine students. That first
class used a converted dairy barn as a classroom
and built two dories and two 18-foot sailboats as
the curriculum.
“A lot of people said, ‘You can’t do that, it doesn’t
make sense,’ and we turned a deaf ear to them,” recalls Burgess, 61, who retired from the school in
2001 but still serves on the board of trustees. “There
are a lot of balls that we had in the air, but we were
young, had a lot of energy, and there was just no
question in our minds that it was going to work.”
Burgess stumbled into his career after taking a year
off between college and entering his family business
in Springfield, Mass., a photo engraving business in
the days when newspapers were printed with zinc
plates. He liked working with his hands and begged
Rumery’s Boat Yard in Maine to hire him.
“I developed a passion for it. I loved it,” he says of
working for the wooden boat builder. “I couldn’t
wait for the weekend to be over, so I could get back
to work Monday morning.”
THE LANDING SCHOOL
