Today, Maersk Training announced an exciting partnership with East Coast College to provide training courses from the college’s Energy Skills Centre in Lowestoft and Offshore Wind Skills Centre in Great Yarmouth.
This new partnership looks to benefit the region, with the potential to create jobs and establish the college as a national centre of training excellence for offshore renewable energy.
Danish giant Maersk Training has invested heavily in the renewable energy sector and naturally identified East Coast College, situated in a key location for the UK’s renewable industry, as an ideal fit to provide training for the industry.
Following the opening of the £11.4m Energy Skills Centre earlier this month, this partnership combines the college’s world-class facilities with the experience and expertise provided by such a global influence.
Operations Manager at Maersk Training, Michael Prater-Cockayne, commented:
“Maersk Training are excited for this opportunity to work beside East Coast College, to support and develop the industry in the east coast area. The excellent facilities offered by East Coast College lend themselves to create a state-of-the-art training centre to not only enhance available skills development in the region, but also to support the community.”
Coast College, Rachel Bunn Assistant Principal,
Michael Prater-Cockayne Operations Manager at
Maersk Training and Gary Paterson, Site Manager
at Maersk Training.
James Costello, Maersk Training’s Business Development Executive, added:
“As offshore wind continues to thrive down the east coast, the message from our clients has been clear – they want a high standard of training that is dynamic, challenging and delivered locally. To help our clients to reduce the total cost of training and provide a solution to this challenge Maersk Training UK have entered into a partnership with East Coast College that allows us to bring our globally recognised training standard to the East Anglia region. The partnership also allows Maersk Training and East Coast College to work together in supporting local skills and creating opportunities for aspiring wind turbine technicians. We’re really looking forward to getting involved with the region.”
As the region’s leading education provider for the industry, East Coast College is committed to both developing future talent and the wider community. The new Energy Skills Centre, home to the innovative East Coast Energy Training Academy, will now be able to offer new offshore and renewable courses to around 1,000 students every year.
Safety and technical training will also be made available, which will include Global Wind Organisation courses. With an eye on the future, East Coast College has identified further opportunities to expand its portfolio with Maersk Training to include courses on blade repair in its 2020 curriculum.
Commenting after his official announcement, Stuart Rimmer, CEO of East Coast College said,
“A partnership between East Coast College and Maersk Training provides the region with an opportunity to significantly increase the responsiveness and quality for skills development for offshore wind.
The college has a long and proud tradition, and has deep relationships with local and regional employers. We hope that this new partnership will give access to the very best training for the sector at the best value for money.
We want to ensure that we enhance what is already in the region and Maersk Training will work hard to ensure we offer complementary training. East Coast College is delighted to announce this partnership as part of Offshore Wind Week.”
Maersk Training is an internationally recognised brand, standing for the highest quality training. Aligning with East Coast College, with the recent opening of the Energy Skills Centre in Lowestoft and East of England Offshore Training Centre in Great Yarmouth, makes perfect sense for the Eastern region as we become a centre of national significance for offshore renewables.
The announcement of this new partnership coincides with the UK renewable energy industry celebrating Offshore Wind Week, a week to champion the benefits that offshore wind energy provides.
Simon Gray, CEO of the East of England Energy Group (EEEGR), welcomed the news saying,
“It’s fantastic to see this excellent new addition to the skills and training provision in the region. We look forward to continuing our relationship with the college and their training providers.”
East Coast College provides a variety of innovative training solutions to over 800 companies. Its focus to develop knowledge and skills helps to exceed business objectives and raise aspirations of the present and future workforce.
Maersk Training started 40 years ago in Denmark, and has now established itself globally with a reputation for raising the standards of training in the oil and gas, wind and maritime industries. It has centres in four locations in the UK, two in Denmark, as well as others in Norway, Brazil, India, the Middle East and the USA.
