Maine paperworkers get advance training in N.H.

WATERVILLE — Employees at Maine paper mills are crossing into New Hampshire for advanced training in papermaking that isn’t available at technical colleges in their home state, one of the nation’s leading paper producers.

Employees of Madison Paper Industries, Scott Paper Co. and Boise Cascade Corp. are among those taking courses under an associate degree program in pulp and paper technology offered by New Hampshire Technical College in Berlin.

“It’s a program they offered that our employees are choosing to go to. Our person gets more classroom training in the papermaking process. Combined with what they’re learning on the job, it’s a perfect match,” said Jeff Nevins, communications manager at the Boise Cascade mill in Rumford.

About 20 Boise employees are enrolled in the program, Nevins said.

In the Madison area about 17 people are enrolled, representing Madison Paper and Scott Paper’s mills in Skowhegan and Winslow, said Glen Foss, human resources manager at Madison Paper.

Nevins and Foss agree that while the University of Maine offers an excellent bachelor’s degree program that trains pulp and paper engineers, the state’s technical colleges offer no associate degree or certificate program for millworkers.

New Hampshire Tech has been offering a two-year degree in pulp and paper technology since about the mid-1980s, said Dean of Academic Affairs Doyle V. Davis.

Besides basic subjects like chemistry, English and computer applications, the program includes specialized courses that include wood and fiber technology, maintenance principles, quality control principles, and paper industry instrumentation.

Many of the specialized courses are offered at the mill sites, and some core coursework can be taken at Kennebec Valley Technical College in Fairfield through a cooperative agreement, said Davis.

Douglas McGowan, director of continuing education at KVTC, acknowledges that papermaking science offerings need expansion in a state in which pulp and paper accounts for about one-third of industrial production.

“The state has a good reputation at the four-year degree level, but there is a gap before the four-year level and that’s something that needs to be filled,” he said.

Foss and Nevins disagree on whether the state should move to do so.

“It would be one of the most intelligent things we could do as a state” in an effort to provide better trained workers and help stem the loss of industrial jobs, Foss said.

Nevins agreed that swift advances in technology mean workers can no longer go directly from high school to mill jobs, but says the times probably aren’t right to create new college programs.

“This is fulfilling our needs. Given the state of budget affairs it would be very difficult for us to say we need another program,” he said.