Maine Maritime Academy students are on the school’s campus in Castine. Photo Courtesy of Kate Noel/Maine Maritime Academy

The Maine Maritime Academy in Castine is bringing back a nuclear engineering program that it dissolved in the 1990s as the market for nuclear power changed.

“As nuclear power phased out for a little while, a lot of plants shut down, like Maine Yankee here in the state. The jobs went away, and Maine Maritime followed the trends of the market,” said Craig Johnson, the academy’s new president, who was appointed to the position in March. “As nuclear is certainly coming back as an option, and the maritime nuclear will be here in a few years … we need to provide what the market is looking for and stay current on all trends.”

The public maritime academy, one of six in the nation, offers several engineering majors, most of them focused on work that happens on ships: marine engineering, marine systems engineering and power engineering. But Johnson says as the country opens itself back up to the possibility of nuclear power, new opportunities will be created both on shore and at sea.

The college reintroduced a nuclear engineering minor this academic year, and 11 students are expected to graduate with it this spring. The stand-alone major will be available to students next fall.

The program will be supported by a $1.5 million gift from 1979 alumnus Guy Mossman, who made the donation in honor of his father Edward Mossman, a 1950 graduate of Maine Maritime. That endowment will fund a faculty chair position to oversee the department in perpetuity, the college said.

The new program will allow the college to expand its courses in applied nuclear technology development and operations, and reliability engineering, according to a statement about the donation.

“Nuclear and reliability engineering are natural extensions of existing training in marine engineering operations, maintenance, automation and control, and steam generation and systems,” the announcement reads. “Training in the aligned disciplines of nuclear and reliability engineering will prepare students for a wide range of careers in the maritime and shoreside power fields.”

Craig Johnson, president of the Maine Maritime Academy, speaks during the State of Higher Education address before a joint convention of the Maine Senate and Maine House of Representatives in March. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

Johnson said the academy will bring in a couple of new faculty members for the program, and he hopes the major will attract a new population of students. The academy’s nuclear engineering program will be the only one of its kind in Maine and is also unique among maritime academies nationwide.

“I think it’s a great opportunity for the school to get back into this field,” Johnson said. “It’s a growing field, it gives us a competitive advantage, and the reality is it’s going to give our students a competitive advantage in seeking employment.”

Maine Maritime Academy is also gearing up for the receipt of a new training ship used for educational trips and training. The current training ship, called the State of Maine, took its final voyage last spring and has been returned to the Department of Transportation’s maritime division.

The new vessel will arrive in September, and because the academy’s pier in Castine is currently under construction, it will dock in Portland and Searsport until the summer of 2026. It could be in Portland from November 2025 to April 2026.

Johnson said the new ship, which is being built in Philadelphia, has a higher capacity and more training spaces. It carries between 600 and 800 people, and can hold up to 1,000 for specialty missions. Unlike the previous vessel, an oceanographic research vessel, Maine Maritime inherited from the Navy, the incoming ship is custom-built for maritime training.