Underway internships and sea time await for GLMA students

Travis Snyder, The Record-Eagle, Traverse City, Mich.
·3 min read

May 17—TRAVERSE CITY — Great Lakes Maritime Academy students will set sail on a training cruise that will last roughly five months.

The 46 GLMA students will be aboard the T/S State of Michigan when they depart from the academy on Saturday. The ship is expected to leave the Great Lakes campus harbor at 2 p.m., depending on the weather.

The training ship will sail through Sept. 17 to provide an opportunity for 90 cadets to earn their required sea time.

To meet the requirements of their four-year program, they must earn 360 days of sea time.

GLMA Superintendent Jerry Achenbach said when they return, good jobs will be waiting for them.

"There's high demand for graduates who have merchant mariner credentials are needed, everyone is hiring out there," Achenbach said.

Michael Surgalski, captain of the T/S State of Michigan, said training cruises take place every summer and fall. During the other months of the year, students are in the classroom getting ready.

"Training and prepping," he said, "we're constantly working on projects all year long. And this year, for the first time, we offered the galley cooking class."

The GLMA and Great Lakes Culinary Institute (GCLI) have been working together the last several years to bring culinary students aboard to earn their internship credits during the sailing season. The first students to earn GLCI's Culinary Maritime certificate graduated earlier this month.

One of those students, Doug Richardson will serve as second cook aboard the State of Michigan for the first training cruise, earning internship credits. After more than 21 years working with an East Detroit Fire Department, he was ready to pursue a new path, so he chose the Great Lakes Culinary Institute.

"The hardest part of working on ship is getting everybody in there and learning to dance around each other," said Richardson. "It's basically a kitchen for two. I think the instructors have been awesome. Every time I've needed anything or had questions, they've been cheerful and happy to help."

GLCI Director Les Eckert said that the culinary institute is unique in that it's the only one in the country that shares a building with a maritime academy — an attractive trait of the program.

"When we made the decision to start advertising this certificate, we had to work with the maritime academy to decide what our students needed to meet requirements," Eckert said. "We also had to plan menus based on what food the cadets needed."

This summer, six GLCI students will be completing an underway internship onboard the State of Michigan.

Built in 1985, the T/S State of Michigan was initially named Persistent, and used for submarine surveillance at the end of the Cold War.

In 2001, the ship went to the United States Maritime Administration under the U.S. Department of Transportation, which currently owns the vessel.

GLMA is one of only six maritime academies in the country, and students earn a bachelor's degree and merchant marine credentials at the end of the four-year-program.

The program has attracted students such as Eliot Turner, who came to Michigan after completing his undergraduate degree at Louisiana State University.

"It was during COVID, and I wanted to pursue something else," Turner said, explaining that he initially pursued a degree in sales and marketing. "After I've finished here, I'd like to go back to Louisiana and find work, perhaps on the Gulf of Mexico."