By Steve Klamkin WPRO News

U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh Monday toured a training center for future submarine builders, saying the program at New England Institute of Technology in Warwick represents a good future for fledgling tradesmen and women.

“The young people that are here, they’re just ordinary people,” Walsh said after visiting welding, fabrication and other labs designed to train different aspects of boat building.

“They were waiters and waitresses, they might have been landscaping, doing different things here and there and now they have an opportunity to work on world-class vessels for the United States Defense Department, it’s just amazing,” Walsh said.

Walsh, a former Mayor of Boston declined to weigh in on Tuesday’s race for mayor, but said he would support the eventual winner in the race, seen as a run-off between two women city council members, Annissa Essaibi George and Michelle Wu, but offered to be a resource for the winner.

Walsh offered prayers for the family of the late Boston Red Sox player and broadcaster Jerry Remy, who died over the weekend at age 68 after a long battle with cancer.

“Such a sad loss for Red Sox Nation,” Walsh said. “He was such an integral part of our team.”

“He was such a great baseball mind, and he added a Boston flair to it, a New England flair, said Walsh, who said he encountered Remy several times during his term as mayor. “A good man, good man,” Walsh said.