Page 46: of Marine News Magazine (January 2011)

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46 MN January 2011

Posted on MaritimeProfessional.com

First online installment of this unique partnership to focus on Maritime Risk. Out in front of the premier edi- tion of Maritime Professional print magazine, readers and online listeners will learn how to overcome uncertainty and meet compliance standards – by empowering their individual employees.

Maritime stakeholders continue to face complex chal- lenges. Maintaining a healthy bottom line in the face of a myriad of regulatory, environmental and operational risks, therefore, has become Job 1. Preventing the loss of vessel and crew from acts of piracy, catastrophic accidents, natu- ral disasters or the loss of infrastructure resulting in down time which prevents or suspends essential activities are just some of tasks confronting today’s maritime professional.

As the New Year moves into full swing on February 16th, an innovative WEBCAST series will kick off at 1100 hours EST to address the scourge of Maritime Risk. This interactive discussion between maritime experts Joseph

Keefe (Maritime Reporter group) and Donald McKay (American Public University) will promote dialogue, heighten awareness and present solutions to these chal- lenges. These will include: • Standards of Training and Certification and Watchkeeping (STCW) Compliance • Cost-Effective Education of the maritime workforce • Utilizing technology to more effectively deliver content • Optimizing operational efficiency while minimizing vulnerability

This webcast will also include a Q&A session and a few twists that you might not expect. Also participating, appropriately enough – as one of many online choices available to industry – is the industry’s online STCW training leader, MEBA’s Calhoon MEBA Engineering

School (CMES). CMES and its offerings are important in that they have developed, packaged and are now delivering the maritime industry’s first online, fully interactive U.S.

Coast Guard approved STCW training course. Maritime

Professional Managing Editor (and licensed mariner)

Joseph Keefe has taken and passed both courses and will lead listeners through a discussion of what’s available, how that affects your bottom line and more importantly – why it is good for the maritime industry.

From APU, Professor Donald McCay will talk about

Minimizing Maritime Risk using a Knowledge

Management Framework. From the solid base of APU’s critically acclaimed expertise in online education (APU is the 2009 recipient of the Sloan Consortium’s prestigious

Ralph E. Gomory Award), online participants will learn

APU & Maritime Reporter

Webcast Series Kicks Off in February

Seattle Shipyard Takeover is a Pointer for 2011

Speculation on the forthcoming year has become remarkably sparse because of the tumultuous events in liner ship- ping and uncertainty over the international economic situation. But a year-end port-related takeover is a probable indication of which way U.S. shipbuilding is headed. Portland, Ore. yard Vigor Industrial has bought the venerable (94-year-old) Todd Shipyards in the Seattle area for $130m, creating a company with 1,600 employees. Todd’s man- agement will remain, as will all existing contracts. So, what sort of work is Vigor acquiring? Unsurprisingly, Todd is big in the naval and Coast Guard business. This month it won a contract to give the Nimitz a new electronic and general equipment sparkle, on top of a contract awarded previously. All told, there is an order book of $100 million.

While Todd has a fairly sizeable private order book as well, it’s the government side that is of the greatest interest.

Which is the pointer to 2011 trends. Other West Coast yards are likely to change hands as profitability becomes increasingly difficult, with two that spring immediately to mind. The burden of bureaucracy and form filling is also behind Todd’s sale, another pointer for the year. “Being publicly owned is a tremendous management drain, in terms of spending significant amounts of time making sure your disclosures are accurate and up to date,” is how a Todd boss put it. But even shipyards are not immune to lawyers trying to make money out of a deal. At least four law firms have announced they are investigating the deal for “breach of fiduciary duty,” which means that some shareholders reckon Todd could have got a better offer. That too is an indication of what the next 12 months hold.

Excerpt from Martin Rushmere’s post on MaritimeProfessional.com