How to draw more females to marine tech trades

This week, the American Boat & Yacht Council (ABYC) is celebrating its fourth annual International Marine Service Technician Week to call attention to the marine service trades and honor the people who help keep boating safe and reliable.

From Master Technicians to students and educators, ABYC will highlight marine techs of different backgrounds, with Wednesday’s focus on female technicians and how to attract more women into the marine technical trades.

“That’s tough. I think getting any woman into any trade is tough. That’s kind of a given,” lamented Stephanie Makoujy, yacht systems manager for Portland Yacht Services in the US state of Maine at the Northeast tip of the nation.

It’s a sentiment shared some 1,400 miles south in St Petersburg, on Florida’s Tampa Bay by certified marine electrician Jennifer Peterson Nummi, CEO of Buttercup Marine.

“It’s tough. I mean, first there has to be interest. Women have to be interested in it first. That’s where it starts to be passionate about it. Even in general to get more women in science and engineering.”

Career website Zippia estimates that nearly 17,500 marine technicians are employed in the US, 12% of which are women. Careerexploer.com shows that in 2025 only 6% of marine electricians are female, with those interested in entering the career breaking out to an 80/20-percentage favoring men or a ratio of 3.97 to 1.

Sarah Devlin, accreditation director for the ABYC Foundation – which works to bring academia and the boating industry together “figuring out how industry can support the schools and how schools can support the industry” - reminisces about having to fight to take woodworking and metal classes in her high school years.

“It’s less like that now, but getting those women in there, it’s just a matter of making it accessible. It’s a matter of people teaching their daughters to run boats. I grew up running a boat. I ended up in the marine industry,” she told IBI.

Family ties

Family boating seems to be the common denominator among the technicians who spoke with IBI.

Harmony Cadle, a student at Marchman Technical College in Florid, has lived on the water her entire life. “I’ve been around boats. I love boating. Being out on the ocean. I love engines. My dad does it [working on the family outboard], and so I kind of got it from him. He was my inspiration.”

Despite growing up in the landlocked Western state of Colorado, Jennifer Peterson Nummi spent summers at her stepfather’s hometown on the coast of Ireland where sailing lessons filled her days igniting a lifelong passion, which led her to seek a degreed in Naval Architecture & Marine Engineering.

Nummi wanted a school with that degree program “And a really good sailing team.”

“My parents were taking me to a college fair, and the Coast Guard Academy was there, and they had a huge picture of the Coast Guard Cutter ‘Eagle’ [a 295-foot barque] and basically, I wanted to know ‘how do you get on that?’”

Following graduation from the Coast Guard Academy, Nummi spent two years as Engineering Division Officer on a 270-foot cutter and three years as a Commercial Vessel Marine Inspector. After leaving military service and cruising the Eastern Caribbean and Bahamas for two years on her sailboat ‘Buttercup,’ Nummi tried what she called a ‘corporate job.’

“I just hated it. So, I decided to give it a shot and go on my own.”

While Stephanie Makoujy was raised boating with her family in New Jersey, she never longed for a career in the industry.

“I’m going to be honest; it happened by accident. I wish there was more than that, but I would not say it’s kismet.”

Makoujy, like many young people, found herself adrift.

“I was going to college and then realized I didn’t know what I wanted to do and was spending money to figure it out.”

She followed her mother to Maine and applied for an entry level position at a small boatyard. Today, she heads a crew of 12 at one of the largest yards in the New England region. She holds seven ABYC certifications along with NMEA and Yamaha qualifications.

Guiding light

“I worked in the industry and got my ABYC certs just through experiential data and studying. If you can read, then you can do it. It’s really, really that simple,” Makoujy said. “And once you have two years under your belt, you’ve seen a few boats, and you have a mentor that’s capable of saying, okay, look for these things. This is the direction you need to go, which every single person that I work with in this industry is more than happy to do.”

Finding a mentor, both ladies say, was a key to their success. Nummi began self-employment as a marine surveyor, where she met a marine electrician.

“He was looking for some help and he basically took me under his wing and I started working, doing electrical work which is a lot better than writing survey reports. I made the transition over to doing full electrical,” she said.

An ABYC Standards and Electrical Certified Technician. She also assists in electrical training around the country as an Ambassador with Victron Energy. She’s taken on an apprentice of her own – a male – but is talking to a female boat captain she met who expressed interest in Nummi’s profession.

“I’m really excited. I really hope it works out and I really want to help change. I don’t really want to help train other females in the future.”

Clearing obstacles

Getting young people interested in working with their hands is a difficult challenge, some say, but often more difficult is convincing parents that a technical trade is not beneath their sons and daughters. The key, Makoujy believes, is putting it in terms easily understood by students and parents alike.

“What’s the return on investment if a four-year college is 40 grand a year versus going to [a technical school] for 20 grad for 2 years? What are you going to make at the end of all that and what’s it take to recoup that?

“Ask any welder, any plumber or any electrician, any mechanic, ask those people what they’re making and if they’re candid with you, which the majority of them will be, I think you’ll find that the days of going to college and making six figures and living that American dream, that’s not necessarily the reality anymore.”

Nummi said the military was a great way for her to reach her goals, but it’s not for everyone. Tech school, she suggests, is an easier, faster route. But the important thing for young women to remember is stick with it.

“And go into it knowing it’s a guy’s world. Try not to make it a thing. If you’re passionate about the job, it’s about the job, not necessarily being a woman and a man’s field time.”

Makoujy said the marine trades offer something hard to find in other mechanical trades: accessibility.

“You got to start somewhere. And fortunately, unlike the Porsche dealership where you can’t walk in and [ask for a job], you can go to the big yard and you can say, I want to start at the bottom.

“Does she want to just jump in, and say, ‘I want to start painting bottoms?’ Do you want to spend a year and get some actual education under your belt and do it that way? That’s totally fine. Go to [a tech school or a] community college that has a marine program. But I think if you want to start at the bottom painting bottoms and work your way up and get paid while you do that, there’s more than one way to skin that cat.”