135 companies from across the country come to Castine to meet students

Oct. 19, 2026

By John Boit

CASTINE – The field house at Maine Maritime Academy was transformed into a trade show floor on Oct. 15, as 135 companies from across the United States searched for students to join their firms.

“There are a lot of maritime [businesses], naturally,” said Deb Harman, director of career services at MMA. “ People are looking for supply chain logistics. Power is huge right now. Everybody who is doing anything with power – solar, nuclear, anything at all.”

Harman said the career fair was the largest yet for the school, which is one of five maritime academies in the United States. She said companies, many with a global reach, attended the event looking to snap up seniors and to land on the radar of other students at the academy, which is known for its high job placement rate.

Fifty percent of graduates have a job when they graduate, and 90 percent have a job in the first year, Harman said. The jobs start at $70,000 a year “on the low end.” The ones who decide to work on ships “can make hundreds of thousands–a lot of money,” straight out of college, Harman said.

Tuition at the school ranges from about $12,500 to $29,000, depending on whether a student is from Maine or another state. Room and board is another $12,500. About 96 percent of students receive financial assistance of some kind, according to the MMA website.

***Michael Geger, class of ‘98, shows a list of MMA graduates who now work for his employer, Mitsubishi Power. Photo by John Boit.***

Michael Geger, an alumnus who graduated in 1998, was there at the fair representing his employer, Mitsubishi Power. The company makes turbines that generate electricity. He said that data centers are driving the market.

“Electrical demand is booming,” Geger said. “The opportunities are endless. The power market is crazy.”

Geger said he comes to the career fair every year because he is familiar with the skills they bring to the job.

“We want someone who can lead, be accountable, and have a good work ethic,” he said.

Dressed in a fresh white shirt and tie, Colton Simoes, a freshman from Houlton, Maine, perused the booths. He had spent the last several hours visiting various booths, and had already given out two dozen resumes to potential employers looking for interns.

“Fantastic contacts,” he said, explaining he was mostly looking to “make connections and establish contacts.”

Simoes had run out of resumes and was on his way to print an extra copy for Sappi, a major pulp and paper company, that was about to hire from a pool of intern candidates.

“I talked to 23 companies. I’ve been here since 10:30 this morning. I haven’t even eaten,” Simoes said shortly before 2 p.m.

Companies at the annual career fair represented industries involved in power generation, marine services, logistics, shipping, marine research, and even food companies.

Katie Putnam came down from Aroostook County for the fair to represent her employer, McCain Foods, a Canadian company that makes one in every four French fries in the world. The company processes potatoes into French fries at its plant at the top of Maine near Presque Isle.

So what do French fries and MMA have in common?

“We’re looking for engineers,” Putnam said. “Whatever it takes to run a ship, it’s the same for our systems. We’re basically a ship that doesn’t move.”

Harman, from the career services office, said that despite the academy’s relatively remote location–at the end of a peninsula, in a small town, within a largely rural county–the turnout was “phenomenal.”

“They are very skilled,” Harman said of the students. “They know what they’re doing.

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