We work very closely with NSCC. We built a training program that's available to the entire industry. I call it shipbuilding 101. It was a five- to six-week course that was run by the NSCC. We paid them the tuition to do that. We put 500 of our workers through it to make sure they were up to speed on all the modern shipbuilding techniques and processes, including modern unit construction and blueprint reading.
Then there was a three- to four-week practical factor that everybody had to pass. If you were an ironworker, you had to assemble a tank. If you were a welder, we gave you a certain amount of welding to do in different configurations and with different processes in a certain period of time. An electrician had to do wiring, and for pipefitters there was something similar. We worked with the Nova Scotia Community College and got about 500 of our people those modern skills to make sure they were ready to construct a ship.
On top of that, on the first floor of our massive facility, we have a 17-booth welding school. We have the Canadian Welding Bureau right in there, and we bring in Canadians who don't have full journeyman certification and give them the training and the certifications right there. We knew we would have to work with Canadians to get them these jobs, because a lot of them didn't have all those skills. We also have a full training centre in that facility for electricians and tank-testers and pipefitters and ironworkers. We think we're set up for the long haul.
The certainty of the 30-year shipbuilding contract that was run with this national shipbuilding strategy gives us the ability to invest this kind of money and talent into training, which we were never able to do before.