Page 36: of Marine News Magazine (January 2, 2010)

35 37

36 MN January 2010

In September 2009,

Captain Mark Freeman cel- ebrated 50 years in business at the Fremont Boat

Company in Seattle, Wash. “My dad ‘Doc’ bought the business which was called

Fremont Boat Market on

September 20, 1928 from

Capt. V. C. Webster, who founded Fremont Towing in 1915 and Fremont Boat

Market in 1916.” Freeman’s wife, Margie, had 30 years of her own to celebrate with the company last

September.

Freeman was born in 1934, during the depres- sion. “I started running one of dad’s tugs the launch

Dolphin II, a 36 footer when I was 11. Boy, what a thrill that was. At age 13 I got my first tug, an ex-

Navy 21-ft motor dory, the

Seal Rock, with a tremen- dous eight horse power. I used her for log salvage and called the company Tatoosh Towing & Salvage.” Freeman did log salvage and general towing until he joined the U.S.

Coast Guard in 1955. “I served the Coast Guard for eight years: four active and four inactive. After boot camp I went to the Grays Harbor

Lifeboat Station at Westport and stood watches in the lookout tower before I got to run all the different motor lifeboats and utility boats. We had the 52-ft Invincible and a smaller 36-ft lifeboat, the 36469, a 26-ft Monomoy surfboat and three different 40-ft fast utility boats.” “I always laughed that when I joined the Coast Guard all

I did was change uniforms and take a drop in pay and start towing for them.” Freeman received a Coast Guard

Commendation medal for rescuing the crew off the

Liberty ship Sea Gate which went aground on Sonora

Reef near Pt. Grenville on the Washington coast and a

Letter of Commendation for the rescue of two boys in the surf at Grayland.

After leaving active duty in 1959, he went back to work for his father, whose busi- ness was now selling boats and renting moorage, “a typical small business,”

Freeman said.

After his father passed away in 1963 Freeman took over the business with the help of his mother, May. “I didn’t really like selling boats so I resurrected the tugboat side of the business and formed Fremont Tugboat

Company. I had a grand time with it.” In 1979,

Freeman’s wife, Margie, also began working in the business.

Freeman’s son, Erik, born in 1970, started on his first boat, the 15-ft tug Barf, when he was eight-years-old.

Today Captain Erik Freeman has 30 years in the business. “I sold the tugboat company to my son Erik and his best friend Tom Bulson in 1995 and they still own and oper- ate the company. Their main tugs are the Dixie, Standfast,

Stinger and Halftrack and a flat scow FT 4519.” “I have my own Tugboat Museum in my office and a collection of over 100,000 tugboat photos. Chuck Fowler and I got together and published the book ‘Tugboats on

Puget Sound,’ so now I am an author, although I couldn’t spell it last week. I still run a small tug so that makes it 64 years that I have been running tugs.” people & company news • builder profiles

Fremont Boat Co.

Capt. Freeman: 50 Years Later

Mark Freeman as Office in Charge in the U.S. Coast Guard

Photos courtesy Captain Mark Freeman

Captain Mark Freeman and his wife, Margie Freeman