Eight Great Mills High School students completed an eight-week job training pilot program this summer, the second cohort of a workforce initiative that organizers say is helping build a direct pathway from Southern Maryland classrooms into the region’s defense and technology jobs.
The Patuxent Partnership, Great Mills High School and St. Mary’s County Public Schools announced completion of the 2025-2026 GMHS Student Pilot program on Friday, crediting a grant from the county’s Local Management Board with launching the effort and additional funding from the PNC Foundation with allowing the nonprofit to double the number of participating students this year. Participants worked 15 hours a week over eight weeks, attending five professional development sessions led by partner organizations alongside structured mentoring built around a custom software platform The Patuxent Partnership developed with CTEWorkforce, featuring modules on workplace readiness and professionalism.
The Local Management Board, a body established in each Maryland county in the mid-1990s to coordinate local child and family services, has increasingly directed funding toward workforce-focused programs in recent years alongside its traditional role supporting mentoring and family services. In grant materials describing the initiative, Patuxent Partnership Executive Director Bonnie Green said the program was designed to provide “career exposure, security clearance education, durable skills training, and hands-on work experience” to prepare students for high-demand careers, particularly in Navy and Department of Defense industries, framing the effort as a way to strengthen the local workforce pipeline and support economic growth in the Great Mills area.
This year’s sessions drew on a range of regional partners. The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division led a session on security clearances, paired with a separate session on career opportunities at Naval Air Station Patuxent River. The Maryland Business Roundtable for Education brought in Maria Derisavi — a Leonardtown High School graduate who was crowned Miss Maryland in 2025 and went on to reach the semifinal round at Miss America 2026 — to discuss challenges ranging from financial management to professional networking. St. Mary’s College of Maryland led a session on resume writing, and the YMCA presented on programming and opportunities available to Great Mills students through the organization.
Great Mills High School sits in a section of St. Mary’s County heavily shaped by its proximity to Naval Air Station Patuxent River, where many local families work directly for the Navy or for the government contractors that support it. The school’s Navy Junior ROTC program, one of the largest in Maryland, has long served as one on-ramp into military and defense careers for local students; the new pilot program adds a civilian-side complement aimed specifically at building workplace readiness skills and direct connections to the region’s technical and defense employers before graduation.
Organizers said the program’s value extends beyond the eight-week structure itself, with several participating students continuing on with employment at the organizations where they trained or mentored. The Patuxent Partnership described the initiative as an important path to jobs in Southern Maryland for students after they complete their education, reflecting a broader regional push — spanning the Tri-County Council for Southern Maryland’s youth employment programs and the Southern Maryland Workforce Development Board — to connect local students in Calvert, Charles and St. Mary’s counties with career pathways in the region’s defense-heavy economy before they either enter the workforce or leave the area for college.
The Patuxent Partnership, a nonprofit that connects government, industry and academic partners across Southern Maryland, runs the pilot alongside its broader menu of STEM pipeline, workforce development and professional networking programming. More information about the organization’s initiatives is available at paxpartnership.org, including sign-up information for its weekly newsletter covering government, industry and academic events across the region.
The pilot program joins a wider ecosystem of youth workforce initiatives operating across St. Mary’s, Calvert and Charles counties, including the Tri-County Council for Southern Maryland’s Summer Youth Employment Program, a six-week option open to residents ages 14 to 24, and the Southern Maryland Workforce Development Board’s Work-Based Learning program, an 11-week partnership that places young adults directly with local businesses. Together, these programs reflect a regional strategy of introducing students to the tri-county area’s job market well before graduation, in hopes of keeping more of Southern Maryland’s homegrown talent in the region’s own workforce rather than losing it to opportunities elsewhere.
