The employment partner in Triton is a driving force as an entrepreneur. All the participants had close contact with Jason and developed a very good appreciation of what it takes to be an entrepreneur and the work, time, effort and money required to start a new company. This is a valuable lesson and the participants developed a greater empathy for him and his entrepreneurial efforts as a result.

There were 12 clients in Triton, the largest of all of the sites.

Challenges

The challenges to this site were:

• The Project Co-ordinator was not hired until later in the project, so the Community Relations Officer of the College of the North Atlantic in Baie Verte filled her shoes. This was quite demanding on the CRO, but he carried out the job quite well, by all reports;
• There was considerable travel required for the Project Co-ordinator as her office was located in Baie Verte and the site and classroom was in Triton, approximately 1.5 hours drive (and very difficult in the winter);
• Few of the members of the CLN were based in Roberts Arm or that area and had to travel a considerable distance to attend the meetings. This was a particular challenge in winter driving conditions;
• The Academic Instructor had no knowledge of the mussel industry (while she was quite experienced in teaching Adult Basic Education). In addition, she was further disadvantaged by her inability to quickly and inexpensively use the Internet (Robert's Arm is on dial-up access) or a nearby library or resource centre to find materials on the industry;
• The Academic Instructor worked on a College contract with no more than 30 hours of work per week (and some of that was to be for preparation and curriculum design). This proved to be a challenge (as it did at all of the sites) when the clients were on site for at least 35 hours per week;
• The mussel processing facility was not ready in time for the students to start their practical training and they did not receive the full 20 weeks planned practical instruction. Instead they received 28 weeks of academic instruction and 12 weeks of practical instruction. This was a challenge for the Academic Instructor as she had to prepare more lessons and frustrating for the clients as they were eager to be working in the plant as soon as possible;
• There was a significant variation of academic skills among the clients, ranging from grade school several decades ago to secondary school only a couple of years before. This made the academic instruction even more challenging as there was such a variety of abilities and confidence levels.