The Marine Technician (MARTECH) training program will prepare sailors to operate and maintain the increasingly complex mechanical and electrical systems of the Royal Canadian Navy’s (RCN’s) current and future warships and submarines. If you are interested in or want more information about the MARTECH training program, please visit our recruiting website.

By Lieutenant-Commander Adrian Deutekom

In 2017, the RCN stood up the new Marine Technician trade. This new trade replaces the legacy trades of Marine Engineer, Hull Technician and Electrical Technician. The vision for the Marine Technician trade was to train sailors that would be capable and flexible in an ever-evolving technological environment. Given the emerging technologies, such as electric drive ships, changing power generation technology and even composite hulls, the old divisions between trades are breaking down at an ever-greater rate.

Marine Technicians will be trained as generalist technicians across a broad swathe of machinery, skills and capabilities. This allows all members of a ship’s Marine Systems Engineering department to be capable in all aspects of the operation of the ship’s equipment. No matter which ship class a Marine Technician is assigned to, they will have the knowledge they need to operate the equipment on board, be it electrical, mechanical or even physical repairs to the ship’s structure.

The new organization of Naval Personnel and Training Group has created the Training Development Centres (Pacific and Atlantic) (NTDC(P/A)). NTDC(P) is tasked as the Curriculum Control Authority to oversee and plan for the development of all MARTECH training and education. As new technologies mature and become available and deployed on RCN platforms, the training will be updated to match, keeping our personnel flexible and ready to deploy on any of our platforms.